Deadly Resurrection
by Syroc
Summary: In the midst of victory, fate strikes a terrible blow to the hero of the Citadel. But knowing that he'd already risen from the grave before, a certain Quarian refuses to give up on him.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** The idea for this story struck me down one day as I was waffling around playing various ideas, and the foundation for a vastly different story led me down a line of thought that took me into dark, murky places that I don't usually frequent. I feel I need to stress that point. I was not, really, comfortable with how easily my brain slipped me into this bleak warren.

That said, I found it was a very intriguing warren, and while I try not to linger in dark places I do possess of small strain of sadism. In the space of not-even an hour I found myself thinking, with a small smile, of _all the terrible ways I could twist it_.

So, if you thought this would be a pleasant distraction, I urge you to go look at something else. Because this is a piece of nastiness that I'm throwing on the interwebs on the basis that misery loves company. This story has no happy ending, except on the off chance that I receive a torrent of feedback claiming that the story was good, but that I single-handedly lowered the average sugary-sweetness level of all Shep/Tali fics in publishing this. Or that I ruined someone's day. Both, I feel, are reasonable goals.

Also, this story should be relatively short. I'm guessing maybe 8-10 chapters, depending on length, inspiration and general laziness.

I suspect that this site somehow alters the documents I upload at 2 in the morning, because there's no way I could otherwise miss so many grammatical and syntax errors. Ever. *sigh*

With _that_ out of the way, I hereby declare the following:

1:** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this, **although I certainly _wish_ I was. That'd be all kinds of _awesome._

2: **Reviewers are awesome**. Favourites and alerts are also nice, but reviews are more so in that they're a definite source of motivation and ego-boost, as well as helping me improve my craft if you spot something I didn't. It happens.

3: I apologize in advance for the use of the word 'belay'. I like the sound of it, and I don't get to use it nearly enough. I should totally dress and talk like a pirate to get away with doing that.

_Alright_, let's wreck your day!

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**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter I: War in Epirus**

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Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy surveyed the battle from the bridge of the star ship _Em'koalis_, listening to her underlings shout out reports from both their own ship and many of the others. The Migrant Fleet was a swarm amongst many others, though theirs was the largest by far. Theirs had, until a few years ago, been the home of almost an entire species. With the help of their old nemesis', the Geth, they'd been able to retrofit most of their ships into warships. Her own ship was one of _thousands_.

"Brace for impact!" One of the ensigns called out, and she hastened to obey.

All across the bridge the inhabitants _Em'koalis _rocked as it was struck by a stray piece of wreckage.

It seemed to be the only real danger the Reapers _could_ pose at this distance: Tearing through their hulls with their ruined carcasses. The Reapers seemed to explode violently when their lives were ended, raining the remnants of their hulls outwards. Her satisfaction turned grim, wondering how many ships their enemy had destroyed simply by dying. Most of the shrapnel was deflected by the protection of their Liveships, but there was still a good deal that passed through that presented a danger.

The old Liveships, for so long the beating heart of their people, now stood at the forefront of their forces, each one a bastion against the onslaught. Their kinetic barriers, already formidable even before the retrofit, had been upgraded into vast, battlefield encompassing shields that could withstand the full power of a Reaper for hours before collapsing. All four of them were the hub for an assault force, each one advancing inexorably forward against what looked like a vast swarm of malevolence.

But they were not alone. What remained of the Hierarchy war fleet seethed like an angry mist at the heart of the conflict while their ponderous dreadnoughts behind the barriers of the liveships firing into the chaos. Alongside them was an amalgam of the Systems Alliance Carriers, Asari Republic dreadnoughts led by the _Ascension_ and a vast swarm of Geth warships that switched from short to long range on what looked to be a seemingly random basis. The Salarian presence in the fleet was the smallest of the council races, its meagre dreadnoughts acting as intelligence hubs and coordinating their allies instead of fighting outright. While some of her comrades in arms may have been resentful of their relatively passive role in the battle, Tali knew better. She'd already received two critical feeds from them and her archives were constantly being updated as the capabilities and weaknesses of the Reapers were exposed. Though as far away as she was from the battle the use of said information was limited, as it was difficult for her to line up shots without endangering her allies.

Advancing from the relay station were the alien shapes of the Rachni. They'd come unannounced, and it had taken a personal broadcast from Shepard to assure the rest of the fleet that they weren't allies of Reapers. They'd be in the fray shortly, but their larger vessels had already opened fire. The purple luminescence of their weaponry was a stark contrast to those possessed by the citadel races, but they were startlingly effective at tearing through the barriers of their enemies.

Somewhere out in the heat of the battle, masked by advanced equipment and the general chaos of war was a ship that she had spent some of the most important years of her life in until recently: The _Normandy_. Occasionally she caught the telltale blue pillar of its main cannon, and reveled in the knowledge that somewhere out there yet another Reaper was put out of their collective misery.

Which wasn't to say that the whole of their effort was a mobile one. Further back, on the periphery of the battle, were the Geth Warp Projection Stations. Three of them had been constructed from the wreckage of the Citadel, each one a living nexus of the Geth. They were sleek, spiraling things with countless mass effect reactors ringed on the inside of their forms. Each one radiated an eerie blue light that only grew more intense until they blazed like distant stars, whereupon they would unleash a powerful blast of energy that tore the Reapers apart. As if that wasn't enough, each of them used their collective intelligence against the Reapers themselves, each one hacking into their more organic counterparts in an effort to further disable them.

On the whole, while there had been terrible sacrifices made, everything seemed to be coming together in their favor. She could only wonder at how simple this battle would have been if only the Turian Hierarchy and the Terminus Systems had rallied to her lover's call to arms. Regardless of warnings left unheeded and deaths that could have been prevented, Tali beamed proudly at it all, delighting in the carnage their collective efforts wreaked upon their enemies. After so long of fighting, the end was in sight.

"Can we fire yet?" She asked loudly at the whole room.

The bridge of her ship more resembled something like a work office than it did a traditional cockpit. But it allowed for her officers to work in close proximity, able to alert her to anything simply by shouting rather than having to patch through a communications system. It was one of the holdovers of the Migrant Fleet that even the newer of their ships were reluctant to remove.

"Neg, ma'am. Our reactor's still cooling down."

_Damn_. She didn't like being a spectator to it all, but they'd almost overheated their core after they'd expended most of their payload by firing off their powered weapons.

"Alright." She bit off, her annoyance showing through. "Don't bother waiting for an order when we are. Start calculating vectors now, then fire when ready."

"On it, ma'am." Came a small chorus from various corners of the room.

She paced restlessly, eyes locked on the holographic real-time display of the battle. They'd destroyed almost half of the Reaper fleet/species so far, even if they had lost many of their close-range warships to do so. No matter. If the Reapers managed to close in on them the alliance carriers would unleash a vast swarm of unmanned drones that would pick the Reapers apart like so many bugs.

"Captain, the Geth are ready to blast. Liveships will drop the barriers in five!"

She bit back a curse as she turned her attention back to her crew.

"Belay the order to fire, power up our barriers."

Nobody answered, but she didn't expect them to. Most were too engrossed by duties that had nothing to do with her order while the others were too busy obeying to do so. Tali heard the barriers power up like a distant hum growing louder. If they'd pulled up the steel 'curtains' over their viewing windows they'd see a shimmering iridescence as the barriers grew in power.

"Fired. Brace for the shock wave."

Again she latched down on her station, tensing for the massive surge of energy. A moment later it passed them by, rocking the ship like an earthquake.

When it passed there was only silence for a moment.

"Liveships powering barriers back up, we can drop at our leisure."

"Do it." Tali ordered, focusing once more on the monitor of the battle.

A second later one of the larger of the Reapers dropped off it, confirmed a moment later by an alert from the Salarians that Harbinger, the apparent general of the Reapers, had been destroyed. Relief coursed through her at the news. She was about to share the good news when something else caught her attention. Her breath stopped as a blip showed up on it, a tiny red dot against the seething of their own forces represented in white and the Reapers shown in blue. She knew it for what it was in an instant. It was the _Normandy,_ though why they had dropped their stealth mode was beyond her.

"Captain, we're getting a feed from the _Normandy_!" Someone alerted.

She felt her pulse quicken as she hastily patched it through to her omni-tool, the din of the ship drowning out as she focused on the feed.

A badly blurred face phased into existence just above her wrist. It slowly defined itself into a face she was intimately familiar with. In the background she could hear sirens and the sound of shouting, though much of it was greatly distorted.

"Shepard?" She asked, dread creeping into her voice.

A terrified grin passed over the face before it disappeared for a moment into static. A moment later he was back, this time the image made completely from shades of red.

He said with his voice drowned out for a moment. "We've been- More static. -eckage! Cockpit's gone, we'er dri-"

All strength left Tali as the feed went on, and she didn't even notice it when her legs buckled under her. Somewhere in the bridge somebody was calling out to her, but she couldn't hear it. Instead there was only the flickering face of the man she loved, his voice broken by the damage his ship had taken.

_No!_ Her mind cried out, despair hitting her like a physical force. _It's a lie! A Reaper lie!_

"-ot going to make i-"

_Not again..._

The voice winked out once more, replaced by a haze of white and black. By now one of her crew had their hands on her shoulder and seemed to be trying to shake her free from her state. The only reason she knew this was because her arm was flailing wildly with the motion, and she stopped the crewman by pushing them away. Distantly she heard a crash as someone struck one of her monitors.

Shepard appeared once more, his face filled with resolution.

"I love y-"

The feed died.

A moment later the red dot on her monitor vanished.

The battle ended for Tali'Zorah in that moment as she devolved into a shivering, sobbing mess. Her second in command, seeing her unfit to command, took up her duties and resumed the rest of the fight.

**

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**

It was later, and the 'battlefield' for want of a better word was even more silent that space would apparently allow. The silence of the grave, it seemed, superseded the quiet of vacuum.

Inexplicably the Salarians failed to transmit the fate of the _Normandy_ until the end of the battle when it was clear that they'd already won. It was only those who had known the members of the crew that complained at the late notification, and they'd only done so after the battle. The Salarians, for their part, simply admitted to not having noticed in the confusion, though it seemed a weak excuse.

Most secretly suspected that they'd simply decided not to, fearing that the destruction of their flagship would be too heavy a blow to the morale of the collective fleet.

But now, with the dangers of core exposure down to relatively safe levels several medical ships flitted from wreck to wreck on the off chance that somehow a section had remained intact, or to collect an escape pod. It had been agreed that the fate of the vast cloud of wreckage would be decided after 'a proper time for mourning' had been exceeded. But for now, survivors were the priority. Strangely enough, one was excluded for the personal use of Tali'zorah, who not an hour before that had told the Admiralty Board that they would give her one or she would commandeer it. Upon seeing the young woman so distressed they authorized it, hastily readying a small crew to help her. The general opinion was that they owed her that much, at least.

She made a beeline for the last known coordinates of the _Normandy_ and began the search for the signature profile of the ship. Amongst the wreckage of so many ships it seemed a fool's task, but they were surprisingly successful. After a short search they spotted the telltale engines of the destroyed vessel, and for a moment things looked promising.

Only the front portion of the vessel had been destroyed, broken off a little over halfway. Further inspection revealed that barriers were still active, preventing the vacuum of space to ravage the ship further. Anyone who hadn't made it to the escape pods could still be alive, provided that core was also intact and the had interior not succumbed to fire. A brief scan also revealed that not only was the core intact but was still functioning. After hours of despair and crying, Tali felt hope rise in her heart once more. She hastily put on the extra layers of suiting that would be necessary to survive the void, her lips a constant mumble of prayer and curses.

She boarded the ship along with two others, a medic and a human marine that had apparently been dispatched to protect the Alliance's property. In any other circumstances she'd have been insulted (or even pointed out that it was technically incorrect, as the ship had initially been _stolen_ from Cerberus, and was therefore their property), but she was much more focused. Shepard could still be alive. They entered through the ruined hub the CIC, each one unnerved by the unearthly gloom that seemed to have settled in. Only the emergency lighting was still functioning, shedding a pale luminescence.

The room had been decimated by whatever had hit them, leaving only the combat stations around the great hologram projector that she'd watched her lover plot over so many times. The consoles were all dead and vacated.

Working up her courage, Tali approached the projector.

"EDI?" She asked tentatively, not sure whether she should fear a reply or not. For as long as she had been on board the ship, the idea of an artificial intelligence still unnerved her.

Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy. The synthesized voice of the AI answered, without any inflection. Welcome back.

The quarian's brow scrunched up in confusion at the simple and strangely warm greeting. Not only was it out of place, but woefully uninformative for a synthetic mind.

And then she remembered where most of EDI was stored: A floor down, past the infirmary. There was a good chance that she'd been torn from the ship.

"EDI, what is your current status?" She asked, if only to confirm her own suspicions.

"This system is currently operating at minimum capacity." Came the prompt reply, again devoid of any kind of emotion. "Core is being stabilized, barriers maintained, basic life support-"

"Thank you EDI." Tali cut in, interrupting the AI midstream. But no, it wasn't really an AI anymore. That part of it was gone now. "Can you tell me if there are any crewmen on board?"

"I'm sorry, that is beyond my abilities at the moment."

Tali cursed quietly, then sighed.

"Thank you for your help EDI, that will be all." She said, a bit more gloomily than she intended.

"Logging you out."

She motioned her two escorts closer, preparing herself to give orders.

"Alright, the ship can't tell us if there are any survivors." She informed them, unsure if they had been listening to their conversation. "We'll have to search manually."

She got two nods from them, and she continued quickly.

"Engineering and the hanger have the most room, so there's a good chance he- they might be there. If you two start there, I'll take care of the other decks."

The Alliance marine hesitated for a moment, looking as if he would protest at leaving her alone, but seemed to think better of it and merely nodded.

Minutes later they were gone, and Tali'Zorah was alone in the elevator heading up towards the loft. She doubted that Shepard would be up there, but she'd rather get it out of the way now rather than saving it for last. So many memories, so much time spent together there. It would not be a pleasant experience.

The doors opened up to the room, revealing that the damage in this part of the ship at least was minor. His fish tank had a small crack running along its length and his furniture had shifted, most likely from an impact.

There, at his work desk was the picture of the two of them together. She was unmasked and blushing while the man beside her wore a mirthful grin. He'd insisted on it, claiming that if she was going to 'hide herself' away in the engineering deck all the time he would have to have something to remember her by. The frame had been knocked on its side, prompting the quarian to reach out and right it. After a moment's thought, she instead tucked it into one of the folds of her suit. There was no point in leaving it on a wreck, especially not if- if-

She abruptly discarded that line of thought and busied herself with searching the room.

The bathroom was empty save for a carelessly dropped towel. The bedroom was much the same, though a bit messier. The man cared little for tidiness, and there were times when it'd grate on her nerves.

Unsurprised with not finding Shepherd, Tali returned to the elevator, telling herself that she hadn't _really_ expected to find him there, and it wasn't a big deal that she hadn't. There was still the crew quarters and, of course, the engineering level. And if he wasn't there either, then he probably managed to escape.

Escape into space, where the largest battle ever in recorded history was raging, and likely the biggest in unrecorded history as well. Escape with a small, defenseless pod that only possessed the ability to float and scream out its current position to anyone inclined to listen.

Suddenly Tali wasn't sure whether she wanted to find Shepard aboard the ruined corpse of the _Normandy_ or not. Both presented a set of dangers that chilled her bones and turned her blood to water.

She pushed those thoughts out her mind as the doors shut closed and tried to ignore the jaunty tune that began playing. She took this as further proof of EDI's technical lobotomy, as Shepard had forbidden the AI from _ever_ 'trapping anyone in a steel coffin and forcing him to listen to insipid music' quite vocally one day on his way down to engineering. The entire crew had been laughing about it for days once Daniels had spread the story around.

She was beginning to see why he had done so, though. Happy tunes are _not_ what one wants to hear when they're scared, worried and none too stable. An internal debate on whether the elevator would still function after a carefully placed shotgun blast was interrupted as the doors opened once more and she quickly stepped into the corridor leading from port to starboard.

"John?" She called out, worry in her voice.

There was no answer, but that didn't deter her from proceeding to examine both the observation decks, life support and crew quarters. She didn't find anyone, but there was evidence of a fire in the starboard port. The observation window had been smashed in by a stray piece of wreckage, tearing through the armor plating and then down in the deck below. It was likely that the fire originated there, and simply spread as far as it could before EDI managed to get the fire-depressors online.

A fire in the lower decks would be dangerous, even if the core was stable. There were fuel lines down there that, if ruptured, could turn the whole level into a veritable inferno.

She left the observation room harrowed but determined to find Shepard. There was a nagging thought in the back of her mind that told her that wherever the greatest danger to the crew was the captain would be close to. It was an unhelpful thought, one she did not care to entertain at the moment. There was still the mess hall and infirmary, after all. There was a small chance that he'd been injured on earlier, or that he'd merely been diverted in the hall for a moment when catastrophe struck. She was certain beyond reasonable belief that something along the lines of either of those _had_ to have occurred.

As she entered she was treated to yet another look at the ruinous damage the ship had sustained, as the long corridor that had once lead to the main battery now ended in inky blackness and stars.

The mess hall proved her hopes empty, devoid of any life save the remains of a mangled crewman who had been dragged away from the where the fatal wreckage had struck. As horrible as the sight was, she could bring herself to feel only relief when she saw the man's face and didn't recognize it. She grabbed his dog tags as an afterthought, remembering how she had helped Shepard sift through the ruined husk of the former incarnation of the _Normandy_. They were important to someone, somewhere.

That left only the medical bay. If he was going to be anywhere on this level, that would be the most likely place. If he _was_ there, however, then he was just as likely injured. Possibly dead, if he'd taken a critical wound as the _Normandy_

She moved toward infirmary, dreading what she would find.

The doors slid open, revealing...

Nothing.

The room was only mildly disheveled, otherwise undisturbed. No evidence that anything more dangerous than a nasty shake ever occurring.

As if to punctuate this horrifying disappointment she received an incoming transmission from the medic who had joined her.

"Tali'Zorah, I've found Shepard."

Her distress momentarily lifted before she remembered what she had seen in the Observation Port. Fear returned, gripping her like a vice. She was paralyzed for a moment before she found her voice again and answered.

"Is he alright?" She asked quickly, spinning around and dashing for the elevator.

There was apprehension in the quarian's voice, which only increased her own. "He's... I don't know. You need to see this for yourself. I'm in the hanger. I'll alert the human, and you can both see."

She hastily selected the lowest level of the ship as she answered.

"No!" She almost shouted the reply. "He'll only slow me down! Alert him once I'm there."

The doors to the elevator couldn't close fast enough for her, but the time it took for them to do so was the same amount for the medic to agree to her request. Perhaps it was the desperation in her voice that convinced him, or rather the knowledge that she was worryingly unstable.

"Very well, captain." Was the acknowledgement, and the transmission ended.

For the quarian woman, time seemed to move at a snail's pace. The few seconds it took to reach the bottom deck seemed to stretch on for an eternity, her worry playing on her perception more than anything else. Her eyes were riveted on the floor monitor as she descended.

When she reached the bottom and the doors opened she waited only long enough for them to allow her past, choosing to squeeze through rather than wait another second. Once past she scanned her immediate surroundings, searching for the man she loved.

"Tali'Zorah, over here!"

The voice came from across far across the hanger, and in a moment Tali was a flurry of movement once more. She was moving so fast that her shawl fell from her head and down to her shoulders, but she was heedless of this. Appearances were all well and good when the time warranted it, but right now was an emergency.

Had she been a bit more patient, and perhaps more aware of surroundings, she would have noticed the severe charring and fire damage across the room. Warped steel, blackened struts and, closer to the elevator, a large pipe that looked as if something had torn its way out of it. She would have taken note of this, and known an even greater despair than she was already experiencing. She would have expected the worst.

Which, when confronted with the truth, would only be an open debate on whether it was or not. As it was, Tali approached her lover with a small measure of hope, which made it that much more painful for when it was dashed.

She spotted the quarian kneeling over what looked like a body horribly burned. The sight stopped her for a moment, the dread sinking in all the deeper in her. But she pressed on, determined to see the matter through to the end. As she drew closer the medic glanced over at her and rose as if to greet her. But the movement revealed the prominent N7 mark on the body's breast as well as a burnt, blackened head.

The anguished cry that erupted from her mouth cut through whatever the medic was attempting to say. It was a primal thing that was all emotion, pain turned to sound. She collapsed beside the body, her hands afraid to touch it lest she somehow make it worse. That he would crumble to ash upon contact, taking away what little remained. For a few moments there was only the sound of sobbing, while the male quarian looked on with a helpless look behind his faceplate.

She didn't notice the other two forms not far away from her, both of which scorched in a similar manner, or the still-open hatch of the Hammerhead that would likely have told her exactly what had happened. She was too busy mourning. In fact, she didn't even notice when the man she was grieving for lighted up in an intricate network of bright orange. It was only when she felt hands on her shoulders that she was shook from her stupor long enough to see a pair of glowing red eyes.

She should have recognized his extensive implants, as well as what it would entail. She should have remembered that he'd already died once before, and the drastic measures that had to be taken to bring him back. She should have remembered the small handful of pills he had to take every week to replenish his supply of nano-machinery flowing through his bloodstream as well as the traces of rare elements they needed to stay active. She should even have remembered the nightmare she'd had to shake him out of, the one he'd later explained that he'd become Saren, more machine than man, and never realized it.

But she didn't. And when she saw what she thought a corpse burst into gleaming, mechanic life she recoiled in surprise, fearing that the reapers had done something to him, somehow.

"T, Tali?" The mouth moved, accompanied with the sound of cracking flesh as it did. A layer of charred flesh fell from the body's cheek, revealing the bright luminescence below.

The voice was strange, somewhat altered from what it had been, but she later explained that away to being the fire's fault.

"Shepard?" She choked out, confused as to what was happening. He was _dead_!

"I can't feel anything." The seared lips said, cracking to reveal the unearthly glow beneath. "Hard to move."

His voice was wrong, and after a second's thought Tali realized why: his body wasn't doing the talking. His implants were, somehow. They were synthesizing his voice, or at least attempting to. But that alone meant that he was still alive, despite the ruinous damage his body had sustained

As if to prove his point, his arm twitched towards her. It made a soft rustling and crackle as it did, each time it did revealing more of the unearthly glow. And then, before anyone could register what had happened, a loud crack sounded and the lower portion of his forearm broke free, revealing the bones below.

It was lined with a complex web of machinery, mottled by the sickly red blood and glowing orange nanites. As if unchained, the arm moved much more smoothly, and Tali found herself staring in horror at the skeletal arm.

"Shepard, don't move!" She cried out, and restrained herself at the last moment from grasping his hand. If his own tiny movements had managed to cause such terrible damage, what would hers do to him? "Keep as still as you can!"

"Why?" There was a note of panic in the strange voice, but the body stopped moving. "Tali? What's wrong?"

"Just, just..."

Tali didn't know what to do. Her mind was ablaze with shock and horror, but above all that was the overriding relief that, somehow, Shepard had defeated death once more.

"Holy god, what is going on here?"

The quarians were so absorbed by the sight of a talking corpse that neither had noticed the approach of the Alliance marine. Their heads whipped around as one at the sound, though Tali was more annoyed than angry at the interruption.

"We're talking." She said flatly, and turned back to Shepard.

"I can see that!" The marine snapped, and was now at her side. "But _how_ is he doing it?"

"Who's there?" Shepards voice was edged with fear now. "I can't see, what's going on? Tali?"

She ignored the others, tried not to hear their mutterings as she leaned in closer to the body lying on the ground before her. It was unlikely he would know this, however, from what he had already told them. Deprived of almost all his senses, she wondered how he'd managed to cope so long.

"I'm still here, John." She said calmly. "We're just worried about you."

For a moment, there was no answer. Tali felt the fear well up in her, fearing that maybe his tenuous grip on life had slipped. But she was proven wrong shortly after this.

"I'm dying, aren't I?" He asked meekly, a voice so unfamiliar to her that she for a moment she was confused. He'd never been like this before.

"No!" She said loudly, as if saying it would make it so. "You have to stay with me, Shepard!"

Again, there was silence. Behind her, she could still hear her two escorts arguing, but their words were a mess of nonsense to her ears. There was only one person she could listen to at the moment, it seemed.

The cracked lips bent into a dead mockery of a smile, the burnt flesh of his cheeks cracking into light as they did.

"Of course I will. I'll always-"

The orange light faded and died abruptly, and his words ended mid-sentence.

Once again, Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy was left with a corpse.

Seconds passed as she tried to process what had transpired, confusion and horror readily apparent in her demeanor.

"Shepard?" She asked, her voice once more filled with dread.

Bad enough that she had had to witness his demise once already. But this... This was too cruel. Fate could not have been so malicious as to keep him alive long enough for her to arrive only to have to see it again.

"Shepard?" She asked again, her voice rising in volume with her fear.

Again there was no answer from the charred body, and the quarian let despair claim her.

She fell forward, and would have clasped her arms around the dead human's chest if she hadn't been restrained by those behind her. They were trying to tell her something, but the words were unintelligible to her.

She was drawn, involuntarily, back to the _Alarei_. Where she and Shepard had come across the body of her father. Where she'd finally allowed herself to seriously consider Sheppard as _more_ than just her best friend and commander. When he'd pulled her into an embrace, giving her someone to reach out to when her whole world seemed to be collapsing around her ears, she'd known that no matter what else happened, _he_ would always be there for her.

But now, inside the ruined husk of a ship she'd spent many of her best years in, there was nobody for her to reach out to. The man she'd come to rely so much upon, to love, was long gone. There would be no more embraces, no more soft comforts. Shepard was dead.

Her wails of sorrow were the only sounds she could discern now.

And then the corpse flickered into life again, an ornate weave of unearthly light. The quarian didn't know what had happened, her confusion only making things worse for her. But her cries faded away, and she stopped struggling against those behind her. For a moment all she could do was _stare_, in horrified wonder.

"S, Shepard?" She sputtered, her voice still tinged with sadness.

"Tali?" The corpse answered, confusion in its voice. "Where are you, I can't see you."

Her confusion increased at this, but she was calmed that he was back, though the matter of how was still beyond her.

"I'm still here, Shepard. I didn't leave." She soothed, trying not to let her worry show.

"Still here? I, I don't remember you coming."

She had become so accustomed to dread by now that she barely even noticed when it fell into her once more as his words sank in.

"Y, you don't remember talking to me not long ago?" She asked, fearing the answer.

"I, we-" Fear was in his own voice, a strange thing to hear from one so synthesized. "I remember fire. I, I can't feel anything, Tali. What's wrong?"

Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy felt like she wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. Perhaps she was too drained already, or was simply numb to the pain by now, but she couldn't find it in her to shed any more.

Nothing, Shepard. She said leadenly, and this time she _did_ grasp the hand, carefully. She tried to ignore the thin layer of charred skin that caked her glove as she did. "We'll fix this. I swear it."

**

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**

**AN:** No, that isn't the worst I've thought out. I said it was going to a dark place, and this isn't even the cellar. Trust me, the man who's made it his personal mission to kill a part of your soul.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN**: Let's get this outta the way real quick:

**1: I do not own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings or whatever else they got.** Except my copies of their games which I try to keep near my at all times, hoping that one day the awesome will transfer to me via osmosis. **I'm also not receiving any pay for this.**

**2: Reviewers are greatly appreciated.** The others are also welcome, but hey, I like the odd chance to respond to my readers. It makes me feel like a real boy, in a real world, and not merely an attempt to fabricate a robotic writer. Not that I am, of course. A robot, that is.

**3: **I apologize in advance for the use of the word 'juxtaposition'. It just looked so interesting when I saw it.

Now that we have _that_ taken care of, let's impair your ability to smile!

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**Deadly Resurrection**

** Chapter II: Paved With Good Intentions **

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Miranda Lawson, on any given day, was not generally the most congenial of people. If a particularly surly psychologist felt inclined to, they could hold her up as a perfect example of how perfect genetics need not breed a perfect individual. Or that beautifully symmetrical facial features and a predilection for wearing cat-suits do not necessarily make a likeable person.

Well-liked or not, however, she was certainly a _useful_ person to know. She was intelligent, well connected and very rarely stopped by little things like gunfire, or ethics. Tali'Zorah reflected on this even as she dug through her omni-tool contacts, searching anything that might allow her to get a hold of the woman. She found what she was looking for under the pseudonym Yvonne Solheim, a name that Tali had chosen for the woman on a whim. She'd liked the sound of the name, so interestingly alien to her.

She was also one of the few that Tali'Zorah was sure could help with Shepard's condition. With the previous success of the Lazarus Project, Miranda was the best source for information in regards to how a second success might be accomplished. And with her current occupation, she was unique suited to help.

While Cerberus was, to the galactic society in general, eradicated along with its relatively unknown leader, the Illusive Man, Tali knew for a fact that a scion of the organization had returned to the System's Alliance under a new name, Hecate. Though she couldn't be wholly certain, Tali heavily suspected that Miranda was, at the very least, among the higher echelons of the group.

Perhaps with her help, she could rescue Shepard from the quagmire that she'd inadvertently dragged him into.

There were a lot of things Tali hadn't taken into consideration when she'd made her demands to the admiralty board. She hadn't considered that the ship was Alliance Property, and that she was technically forbidden from removing _anything_ from it. She hadn't considered that the body of John Shepard might be considered a thing, even if it was periodically trying to talk to its surroundings. She hadn't considered that she and the small crew of her ship might be detained upon returning to the combined Citadel Fleet.

They weren't about to _arrest_ one of the Heroes of the Citadel (as outdated as the term had become with the destruction of said space station), but the Alliance had protested loudly enough at what they were calling 'illegal acquisition of Systems Alliance resources' that the other Citadel races were willing to put a stop to her plans before they ever had a chance to start.

Shepard had been taken from the cargo hold of her ship, still mumbling confusedly even as someone draped a white shawl across him. She'd struggled against a pair of marines in vain to try and comfort him, as even now the uncharacteristic fear he was showing still kindled the same in her.

She'd been restrained and escorted back to her ship, and then back to the Migrant Fleet. She didn't need to hear the condemnation from the Admiralty Board to know that she was fast burning through the favor she'd earned for all her work to end the Reaper threat. While she was still a long way from disgrace, there was no doubt that there was a great deal of annoyance directed at her from her own people due to her actions. After all, for the first time in hundreds of years, they had a chance of rejoining galactic society as something other than outcasts. And she had endangered that with nary a thought.

But, political quandary or not, Tali'Zorah was determined. And there are very few things in the galaxy as dangerous as a truly determined woman.

She brought up the contact information in the safety and seclusion of her small ship, as both the medic and the Alliance Marine had parted with her once they'd been detained.

It was a tiny thing, barely capable of making relay jumps on its own, and it was all that the Migrant Fleet trusted her with at the moment. They'd hardly expected her to take advantage of what they perceived to be a punishment, using it to further her own goals. Shepard would be proud of her, if he was in a state to know of it.

It allowed her privacy that a larger vessel couldn't, as a crew would have been necessary, and due to its size could be easily hidden. She could even sell it, if she felt the need: Ever since Rannoch had been reclaimed and most of the Migrant Fleet converted to military purposes, the quarian people had had the dubious honour of commanding the largest armada in known space. A tiny scout ship was hardly of consequence in comparison.

She reflected on this as she requested a closed connection to the former Cerberus operative, proud in her people despite her predicament at the moment. Their hardship, endured for centuries, had finally ended, and brought with it a strength that had taken the galaxy by surprise. It would only be a matter of time before the council races formally asked her people to rejoin the fold, and she was certain, despite her earlier actions, that a place on the Council itself would not be far behind it. After all, with the Turian Hierarchy in such dire straits, it was her own people who now fielded the greatest military power alongside the Geth. A strange juxtaposition from what she was familiar with, but one she was prepared to enjoy, once Shepard was back.

Her request was soon answered, causing her omni-tool's holographic interface to light up as it established a two-way feed.

The human's face flashed into existence before her, annoyance plain on her features.

"Tali." She stated, her tone curt. "I suppose it was too much to hope for that you'd caused enough trouble for today, wasn't it?"

The quarian woman scowled beneath her mask at Miranda's thinly veiled disparagement, but didn't take too much umbrage to it. She knew from experience that Miranda turned acerbic when she was annoyed or agitated, both of which she probably was at the moment. After all, very few people would currently be in a position to make contact with her so easily, and Tali was not supposed to be one of them.

"I need your help." Tali answered simply, seeing no point in bandying words with the former Cerberus operative.

The human merely nodded, looking away for a moment before responding.

"Yes, I thought you might." Was her reply, and shortly afterwards Tali's omni-tool signalled that it had received a packet. "Inside is everything we've been able to recover from the Cerberus archives regarding the Lazarus Project. Though I wonder if the Migrant Fleet can spare the expenses for such a project."

The woman's voice trailed off in thoughtfulness, obviously trying to go through Tali's options internally.

Tali, for her part, was merely slightly confused at this turn of events before she realized that Miranda didn't know that Shepard had already been taken by the Alliance. It also meant that they'd probably left her out of the loop on purpose, preferring to give the body to some other research branch. Hecate was still new, after all, and mainly comprised of what many would call terrorists. Hardly the kind of people one would normally be inclined trust with the body of a galactic hero.

In spite of these facts, Tali knew that Miranda would hardly be alright with the situation. It was only at the urgings of Shepard himself that she'd salvaged _anything_ from Cerberus, and it wouldn't sit well with her to know that his remains were being handled by any organization other than hers, no matter how well it was justified.

Knowing this, Tali felt something akin to hope seep into her soul as she calmly told the woman that Shepard was no longer with her. That the Alliance had taken him from her before she could do anything.

There were few things Tali was prepared to savour even under normal circumstances, but being able to watch as Miranda's face went from disbelief to shock and then to anger was definitely one of them. Her features darkened as the realization sank in, annoyance evaporating like morning mist into something vastly more dangerous.

"You'll forgive me if I take a moment to confirm this." She stated, abruptly severing their connection.

Tali took this in stride, knowing that Miranda would not let this slight go unaddressed. Even if she had no particular interest in seeing Shepard back among the living she would likely be interested in protecting his remains. Even that would serve Tali's purposes, as once she knew where to find Shepard she could reacquire him with that much more ease.

It was at that moment that Tali realized the full extent of what she intended to do. She was going to steal Shepard away from his own people for her own purposes. Not for the Fleet, not for the galaxy, but for herself. It seemed that Shepard's teasing about her selfless nature and encouragement to be a bit more selfish had at last borne fruit, as the only thing that seemed wrong to her in this situation was that she should consider doing anything _else_.

She was willing to, in essence, go rogue against the entire galaxy. Once the Systems Alliance found out who had stolen Shepard, they wouldn't give her the mild dressing-down she'd just had, and relations to the Migrant Fleet and quarians would become even worse. After all, she was one of their greatest heroes: what did it say about them as a whole if she was willing to do these things?

Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy would have to sever those ties in order to protect her people. There could be no doubt in anyone's mind that she was acting alone, and the consequences of her actions would have to land squarely on her own shoulders. As strong as her people had become, they still weren't a match for the sheer numbers available to the Alliance on its own, let alone their allies.

Without quite being conscious of the motion she found herself looking at the picture she'd salvaged from the ruined husk of the _Normandy_, her unmasked face blushing in embarrassed happiness while looking to the human at her side, who had wrapped an arm around her shoulders and was beaming mirthfully back at her. She'd never thought for a moment that she'd be in this position, but here she was.

And the thought of this being all that was left to her made her willing to fight against anything if it brought him back to her. She tucked the frame back into one of her pouches, though she resolved to find a more permanent location for it soon.

She steeled herself for what she would have to do next, knowing that it had to be done despite how little she wanted to. Shepard had protected her from this once, and she was about to undo that for him. The thought brought a wry smile to her lips. Fate was indeed not without a sense of irony, it seemed.

Deciding that it was better not to wait, Tali brought up a second connection, this time on an open channel. There would be no point in hiding this. In fact, the more that saw it, the better.

She didn't need the contact information for Shala'Raan; she'd long ago committed it to memory. The woman she'd considered to be much like a mother after her biological one had passed away had been a great comfort after Shepard had first died, and had provided much support and guidance once she'd first revealed their relationship to her. And, of course, there had been the many messages passed between them ranging from vital information to simple idle chatter. After Shepard, she was Tali's most trusted friend.

She typed in the information, confirmed and waited for Shala to respond. It wasn't long, and soon she was looking into subtly glowing eyes.

"Tali'Zorah," The older woman sounded mildly surprised by being contacted. "I wish we were speaking under better circumstances. I'm sorry for the reception you received from the fleet, I told the admirals that you were not yourself but they-"

"I didn't contact you to talk about that." Tali informed her 'aunt', not caring that she was being both rude and insubordinate in cutting her off in the process. There were things she had to do, and Miranda would waste much time before contacting her once more. "I need you to do me a favour."

Shala's face tilted slightly in calculation, and Tali knew she was trying to gauge how stable she was.

"That depends on the favour, of course." She offered cautiously, not quite certain she liked the urgency in the younger woman's voice.

"Something's going to happen soon. Something terrible." She inhaled deeply, steeling herself for what she would have to say next. "And you're going to have to exile me."

Tali took no pleasure in the shocked widening of eyes that was all which would reveal Shala's surprise, knowing that if she had her way this would likely be the last time the two of them ever speak again. The last time she ever spoke with another quarian, even.

She remembered Shepard, though. The man who had sacrificed everything, twice, fighting to save all sentient life. He didn't deserve to die without seeing the end of it, and she didn't want to live in a galaxy without him in it. This was the only way, and if there had to be sacrifices, then so be it. He'd already given more for her safety, after all. If this was what was required of her to see this through, then so be it.

"Tali!" Shala'Raan exclaimed, and this time her voice carried a note of command in it. "What are you talking about? What's going to happen?"

Despite the situation, Tali smiled behind her mask. Silly questions, really. Shala would have to know that she wouldn't get an answer to either question. She'd only try to stop her, in any case.

"I can't tell you that." She answered. "But when it does, you'll know why it has to be done."

"Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya, you will-"

Whatever Shala had been about to say was cut off when Tali severed their link. She had been surprised that Shala would address her so, as if she hadn't completed her Pilgrimage and helped to save their entire species several times over. It irked her a bit to know that Shala could still think of her so, when so much had happened since then.

She set a course back into the massive field of destruction that was the graveyard of the Reapers. While it was safe for ships to travel through now, the debris and the remaining drive cores that still functioned would make tracking her movements difficult. There would be so many energy signatures that finding hers would be pure guesswork, and once she'd finished hacking into her ship's VI and washing its identification code the fleet wouldn't be able to track that either. She'd just disappear in the field of carnage.

As an afterthought, she forwarded the information she'd received from Miranda regarding the Lazarus project to Shala. There was no sense in wasting it, after all, and even if the Migrant Fleet couldn't use it yet, it might prove useful to future generations.

Almost immediately after the package had been send, a closed channel was opened. This one was very unlike the one she had initiated earlier, however, in that it wasn't using any of the public or military communication relays. Insofar as she could tell, it was the voice of the ether itself. Curious, but suspecting she knew who it was, Tali allowed her omni-tool to connect.

Not entirely unexpectedly, the face of Miranda Lawson greeted her once more. Her face was a great deal stormier than she'd been when they last spoke. But she wasn't alone. On either side of her was another human, a male and female. Both wore impassive expressions, as if they were waiting for orders.

Miranda spoke first, her voice tightly reigning in whatever she felt at the moment.

"It seems you were right." She announced, her eyes carefully watching the quarian for anything that reveal more. "Shepard really has been retrieved by the Alliance."

Tali nodded impatiently at this.

"Do you know what they intend to do with him?" She asked, hoping to get as much information out of the woman as possible.

"We can't be completely sure as of yet. Most information about the matter is being transmitted with heavy encryption on channels I can't readily access. I know they don't intend to give him to Hecate, though."

Tali smirked slightly, her suspicion having been proven true. Miranda's ego truly was one of her most glaring flaw.

She was about to answer when she saw one of humans behind Miranda reach upwards to his ear, his head tilting to the side as if to hear something better. After a moment, he leaned forward to Miranda and whispered something into her ear. The storm in her features could have been said to have turned icy as she processed the information she was receiving.

"I see." The woman stated.

There was a moment of awkward silence as both women waited for the other to speak. Tali obviously wanted to know what had just been said, though she couldn't tell what Miranda was waiting for. Perhaps she was just planning, or calculating the risks of something she intended. Finally, Miranda sighed, then waved away to the two humans at her sides.

"It seems the Alliance has plans for Shepard." She informed, averting her gaze slightly. "They want to study his implants, find out how they work."

Tali didn't even register that her mouth was agape for a moment, and she quickly closed it when she did.

"Didn't you already give them everything on-"

"Of course we did!" Miranda cut in with a hiss, the anger plain in her voice. "Apparently they think we're withholding information, or embellishing, or something! They're going to remove the damned implants just because the source used to- augh, never mind!"

"Doesn't he need them to survive?" Tali asked, the worry creeping into her voice despite her attempts to control it.

Miranda nodded in affirmation, before elaborating.

"Yes. The network around his skeleton help regulate the growth and functions of the nano-machines in his body. But they've likely been damaged or shut down by whatever killed him. Removing them would be annoying, but they can always be replaced. Troublesome, but not something we can't deal with."

Again Tali's face scrunched up in mild confusion, this time at how Miranda could have gotten her facts wrong. Shepard wasn't dead. Not unless the Alliance had finished the job after they'd taken him from her.

"He's not dead, Miranda." She told the woman, with determination. "I talked to him, before they took him. But, he kept forgetting things. And well, _stopping_, somehow."

Miranda's eyebrows were lifted into a pair of fine arches as the quarian she went on to explain Shepard's condition. Just remembering the confusion and fear made Tali want to cry, but something inside her stopped her from doing so. Maybe it was her refusal to show weakness in front of this cool, calculating woman, or maybe she was just _knew_ that she would fix Shepard. Maybe it was a mixture of the two.

As she explained Miranda would occasionally look away for a moment to make a note of what she'd said, or asked her to repeat something. At one point she asked Tali to stop, then beckoned to someone off-screen and held a quiet conversation for a moment before turning her attention back to the quarian.

Once she was done, Miranda wore an expression of slight perplexity, even as she tried to hold a whispered conversation with someone Tali couldn't see.

"-And you're sure about this?" Miranda said this out loud, as if talking louder would somehow change the facts of the matter.

"Of course!" Tali couldn't stop the resentment from showing in her voice.

"Not you, Tali." Miranda shot her an annoyed look as she said this, before she turned back to the unseen speaker she was talking to. After another moment, she turned back to face Tali fully. "Alright, I think we may be able to help."

The quarian sighed in relief at this, tension she hadn't been aware of suddenly falling from her shoulders like a tangible weight. She'd been prepared to do what she could on her own, of course, but knowing that she would have some help from the inside was comforting.

"How?" She asked, and was ashamed at how eager she sounded. But it was difficult for her to contain herself.

Miranda obviously picked up on the other woman's tone, as her lips quirked into a tiny grin before she answered.

"First, we'll need to meet in person." She explained. "I'm reasonably sure this line is secure, but we need to eliminate all variables before we begin. If someone learns of our plans before we begin, we're doomed from the start. Should we meet in France?"

The promptness of the question surprised Tali for a moment. But the pointed look Miranda was giving her forced her to consider carefully what was being said. She thought of what she knew about the place the Hecate operative was talking about: It was a place on Earth, one of the many individual nations of that world that were slowly losing power in the face of the Systems Alliance's success. Apparently they spoke a very strange if pretty language. Both incarnations of the _Normandy_ had been named after a place-

Suddenly she knew where they would meet.

"Yes." She said tersely, not looking forward to where she would be going next. "That sounds like a good idea."

* * *

Returning to the _Normandy_ a second time was no easier than the first. The happiness she remembered experiencing there was now mixed with the miasma of sorrow and bitterness that she was now pushing through. But at least this time she knew what she was getting into, unlike the first time when the memories lurking there had sprung their nasty little traps on her.

Instead of donning a space-suit and proceeding through the decontamination unit she approached the cargo hold of the vessel, attempting to establish a link with what remained of EDI to allow her to land there.

She was instead greeted by the face of an impatient-looking human, who quickly told her that the hold would soon be opening and that she should proceed to the CIC with all due haste. Tali was surprised by this, but when the massive door of the _Normandy_'s cargo hold opened she quickly piloted her ship inside, marveling silently to herself once more (for what must have been the hundredth time) at how wonderful a ship the _Normandy_ was, even as a wreck.

Tali had prepared herself for anguish, pain and the many other things she'd last experienced there. She'd been expecting a quiet session of scheming and planning that would end with cold, determined action.

She hadn't prepared herself for what looked like a swarm of engineers and technicians working on the interior of the ship. From what she could tell the ship was being stripped of any useful components, taking the ship apart for anything they could use. A lifetime of living in the Migrant Fleet left her disgusted with this wanton waste of resources. It wouldn't take much to repair the ship, even if it was a bit out of the way at the moment.

But she couldn't allow herself to become too concerned at the fate of the _Normandy_. Not until Shepard was back, at least.

The quarian allowed herself to be escorted by a single human, who looked less like a soldier and more like some kind of second-class technician that had been forced away from his work at short notice. Tali didn't mind his impatient grumblings as they rode the elevator up, but was likewise unbothered when she exited at the CIC and he didn't follow. She was here for Miranda, after all.

Who turned out to be surveying a hologram of the _Normandy_'s layout even as she berated one of her subordinates. Tali was a bit impressed at the woman's abilities, but she had always been, in a way. There was a natural ability to lead in her that would have blossomed in a way very similar to Shepard if she'd only allowed herself to be more approachable, or even less aloof.

"Miranda." Tali said loudly, to get the other woman's attention.

Said woman looked over her shoulder for a moment, before turning fully to face her.

"Tali'Zorah, though I suspect you'll only be Tali before too long." She answered, her mouth quirking into a smirk. "I'm actually surprised you'd _ask_ to be exiled."

Tali felt her face heating up in anger as Miranda said this.

"That was _private_, you bosh'tet!" She hissed out, surprising herself with how easily her anger came to her.

"Then you shouldn't have broadcasted on an open channel." Came the cool reply, though it wasn't without a note of dark mirth. "In any case, let's get down to business. You want bring Shepard back. And I'm inclined to help you. Since I know the lengths your willing to go to, this will be a relatively simple matter."

"W, what?"

The anger was still there, buzzing in her head like an angry wasp, but it was being balanced out by surprise at the frank appraisal of the situation. It seemed Miranda had given a great deal more thought to it than Tali has suspected.

"Yes..." Miranda said, her eyes narrowing slightly in calculation. There was a slight pause before she continued, turning back to the holographic display.

"You are going to lead a Cerberus attack." She stated matter-of-factly, and with a gesture the display shifted into a roster of names that slowly scrolled downwards. "I've arranged for these agents to be exposed as spies that infiltrated my ranks on the behalf of a hidden cell of Cerberus. Ostensibly, they'll be helping you in your endeavors in order to procure your aid for their own projects. That way, even if you fail Hecate will remain blameless."

Tali was taken aback at the plan, marveling at the speed with which this woman had arranged it all. She'd only contacted the woman a few hours ago, if that.

She supposed that this had been why Miranda had risen so high up the ranks of Cerberus if she was able to act so efficiently and with this amount of speed. Perhaps there actually _was_ some facet of perfection to her.

"And when we succeed?" She asked, despite her surprise at the quick explanation.

Miranda craned her head back once more, a grin on her lips.

"Then I'll welcome you into Hecate with open arms. Except I won't, because you'll be an anti-Alliance terrorist. But somehow I think you'll survive in either case."

Tali's own mouth twisted into a small smile at this, though it would remain unseen to all due to her suit.

"This will be quite a change." She quipped lightly, folding her arms as she did. "I'll be the terrorist, and you'll be loyal to your people above all else."

The grin on Miranda's features withered into a dark frown before the woman turned back to the display.

"I'm always loyal to humanity, quarian. Never question that."

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**AN**: And with that, I decide to end this installment. Yes, it's shorter than the first one, but y'know what? I thought it had a nice arc to it, and it got things to where I wanted them. I could have padded it out in places, but I kind of wanted a pace to going. Things happening, plot advancing, shit blowing up. That sorta stuff.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** Still here? Good on ye! Join me as we descend further down into the depths, and be sure to watch out for the deep-crows, balrogs and Cthulu. Especially Cthulu, that bugger owes me a soul.

Once more with Feeling!

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. **I mean, really. I'm writing fanfiction. If I'd made any of the Mass Effect stuff I'd be too busy sitting atop my radiant throne of awesome. **I'm also not receiving any pay for this.**

**2: Reviewers will have the privilege of making me smile.** Readers and the like will have the dubious honour of making me grin.

**3:** I apologize that I have no word to apologize for. I thought I could keep this thing going, but apparently I was wrong. I'll do better next time!

Alright, let's turn that blue sky grey!

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**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter III: The Dog and the Crossroads**

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If there was one thing Tali was prepared to say in praise of the Alliance, it was that they had a wonderful ability to innovate upon an older design, and in doing so change the nature of war.

The _Normandy_, while it had come to be one of the most famous its vessels, had been lacking in certain areas. Its second incarnation had had many of those areas improved upon, becoming a veritable titan of destruction for its size as its crew and their expertise expanded. It had taken an errant shrug of fate to lay it low, and it was likely that would have been the _only_ way it would come to pass.

Hecate knew this, and they'd decided that they could do better.

Which brought her to the _Ghost_, a corvette that had apparently been built in secret along with four others. It had been built with a similar intent as the _Normandy_, but with more advanced stealth abilities. The war against the Reapers revealed the ability to detect vessels through their use of Element Zero, something that had proven to be a glaring hole in their stealth abilities until Mordin, along with a few of his STG contacts, managed to develop a countermeasure. The _Ghost_, it seemed, had taken advantage of that development to become a new generation of strike vessels.

It looked like a massive cannon around which a ship had slowly accrued, a tiny cockpit hanging precariously above a massive weapon Tali had never seen before, with other components of the ship circling around the sides and a thrusters jutting out like a pair of extremely awkward wings.

It was not a pretty ship. It was, in fact, aesthetically repugnant to the eye, lacking any of the elegant sleek elegance that she had come to expect from Alliance ships. However, she was willing to concede it was a very novel idea and use of the technology. And the interior of the ship was comfortable enough although its cramped corridors, tiny living spaces and the constant, if distant, hum of the drive core reminded her uncomfortably of the Migrant Fleet and what she could never return to.

One of the first things she found herself doing was pouring over the ship's schematics, eager to distract herself with new information and her own fascinations. Shepard had always joked that he was never sure if she loved him or his ship more, as if it hadn't been obvious. And learning how these ships worked could only help her in the long run, after all.

The _Ghost _was like a miniature _Normandy_, though with an added twist. It had no weaponry beyond its main cannon, which in itself was a strange notion. Unlike conventional weapon, that fired small metal slugs or other ordinance, the _Ghost_'s cannon fired what amounted to a life pod equipped with an extensive array of kinetic barrier disruptors, a hardened point and enough ablative armour to withstand a good deal of attention from a GARDIAN array. Each one carried a single soldier, and they would tear into an enemy ship from stealth. The ship's logs showed that with practice the ship's entire insertion team could breach the ship's hull and be ready for combat on the enemy vessel before they could return fire or power up their drive core for a hasty exit. It did, however, bring up the terrifying notion of what would happen if they _missed_ their quarry. At least being buried alive carried with it a tiny chance of escape before six feet of earth was heaped on you. If an Insertion Pod missed its target, its occupant would fly through space until it died of asphyxiation or the rider decided to take their fate into their own hands and open the hatch, exposing themselves to the freezing oblivion of space.

Strangely, the ship didn't use its drive core to create an artificial gravity. It was a strange sensation, to be in null gravity while still _inside_ a ship, but one she quickly acclimatized herself to. The benefits of it quickly revealed themselves to her, however, when she realized that all the equipment that might have to be moved in an emergency situation would be impossible to move through the narrow corridors under normal circumstances, and without the added drain the ship could loiter in stealth for even greater periods of time with a lower chance of being detected.

It was a sly innovation, as with careful calculations of vectors the _Ghost_ could send a pod directly into the bridge of a vessel, instantly killing everything there by exposing it to the vacuum of space while at the same time allowing them to take control of the ship with relative ease. The _Ghost_ was uniquely suited to their task.

They, along with two other such ships, were going to hijack the _SSV Reykjavik_.

Before leaving aboard the _Ghost_, Miranda had explained thather subordinates had intercepted a series of encoded messages detailing orders for the body of Shepard to be brought to Mindoir. Ostensibly it was to be buried on his home world, but the Alliance had no such plans in store for the saviour of the galaxy. Instead, his remains would be 'stolen' by 'pirates', allowing the Alliance to petition an expeditionary force into the Terminus Systems to root out any remaining pirates and spread the influence of the Council. There was also little doubt in her mind that with the region already so devastated by that passing of the Reapers that the Alliance would see little point in letting the Terminus Systems retain their previous independence. All the while, they would be pulling the Implants from Shepard's body, trying to uncover for themselves how Cerberus had accomplished the feat of raising the dead.

Tali had been disgusted at it. They would start a war in his name even as they killed what was left of him. She had always admired the drive and ambition that seemed to so embody humanity, but now she wondered if her idealism and close association with the best of what humanity had to offer had tainted her opinion. She'd always accepted that the sickness that was Cerberus and its experiments had been the exception, but now she wondered if the frightening reputation humanity had earned prior to the events of the first assault of the Citadel hadn't truly been deserved. In hindsight, they certainly showed a great deal of pragmatism at the least.

Miranda had also explained that there was a possibility that the Alliance would replace the implants themselves once they felt they could replicate the technology, but that it was just as likely that they wouldn't bother. The Lazarus Project had carried a hefty price tag, and with no immediate need for the commander the only real reason to bring him back was for sentimentality.

She also stressed that they would do so _only_ if they didn't research into the origins of the technology, and that if they did then any of the Lazarus Project would likely be heavily restricted. Tali had been unable to divulge any reasons for why this may be from the woman, but with her goal firmly in sight and time of the essence, Tali saw little reason to press the issue.

It was only now that she was alone and rapidly running out of things to do that she began to wonder. Even stranger was why she had never before thought to question how Cerberus had performed an apparent miracle, or why they'd made no effort to further develop the technology. She was slightly ashamed that it was only when she only became curious about now that so much depended on it. If it had been a matter of ship hardware, she'd have devoted herself to learning how they worked, inside and out. But how the implants that kept the man she loved alive worked, that she hardly ever thought about it.

She sighed in exasperation, wishing not for the first time that there was someone, anyone, that she could talk to about it all. Which was a strange thought, considering she shared the ship with seven other individuals.

The crew was obedient, if aloof. She couldn't tell if they had actually been part of Cerberus and still bore a vestige of the anti-alien sentiments or if they were simply unsure of how to act around her. She knew that most humans had trouble interacting with her people, as their masks made them hard to read, even if their body language was similar. Whatever their reasoning, she found herself alone for most of their passage.

Which, whenever she wasn't overcome with melancholy, she was prepared to accept. It wouldn't be long before the _Reykjavik_ entered the system, and once that happened she suspected that there would be precious little time for anything other than frantic action.

In a strange way, she kind of looked forward to it. She would be able to lash out at those who had taken Shepard away from her, and in doing so forced her to leave her own people. She'd never really considered revenge to be anything other than petty, but the injustice of the situation irked her.

Why Garrus had been so consumed with it now seemed much more understandable to her. It was easy to write off the misfortunes of others, berate them for dwelling on past mistakes, but it was quite different when she was the one hurt. She couldn't just stand aside and let Shepard go, not when she could do something about it. Retribution was only a step beyond that, and knowing what she did about what they wanted to do to Shepard, it was a step she was willing to take.

It was what would come after that that would be difficult. Piracy was one of the most terrible crimes to her people, and she was about to commit it. While it may not be considered too terrible to most other races, she knew the Admiralty Board would, if Shala'Raan realized this was what she had meant, unanimously vote for her exile. After all, she'd already stolen a ship from them. Once they did, they would be safe from the repercussions that would surely follow from her actions.

Frankly, she was a lot more concerned about being labeled a terrorist, and a member of Cerberus at that. But not for the reason many would expect. An alien working for an anti-alien organization, who had a track record for ruthlessness in regards to unnecessary personnel? There wasn't a word in Khellish for that kind of idiocy, and she deeply suspected that one had never been conceived by anyone. Even if the people who mattered would know differently, it irked her somewhat that she was going to go down in history as not only a traitor, but a damned stupid one to boot. Hopefully, once her work with Hecate/Cerberus was done, she and Shepard would be able to vanish into obscurity.

Of course, there was something to be said about becoming the first widely feared and hated Quarian terrorist. A terrible thing, to be sure, but it was still another blow to the old stereotypes, elevating them from a people deserving of only pity or scorn. If she gained a great enough level of notoriety, the galaxy would have to respect her, and through her the Quarians.

She preferred to focus on that aspect of her decision. Even this would help her people, if only a tiny bit. What she might have to do to gain that level of notoriety was not a thought she cared to dwell on.

A flash of red caught her attention, a notification from the monitor she was currently reading that one of the crewmen was trying to message her.

Tali opened a connection to listen hastily, eager for any kind of news that would break her from the monotony of waiting.

"Captain, the _Reykjavik_ has just confirmed its arrival in the system. It's currently moving along the projected vectors."

The audio-only message annoyed her slightly, but she nodded as she heard it. Hypocritical as it might sound coming from a Quarian, she liked see those she was talking to, even if it was only a faceplate. Despite that, she recognized it as the voice of the human who would be serving as her operations chief, Alexander Hayes. Like everyone else on her team, however, he only spoke to her when he had something to report or inquire about.

"How long until they enter range?" She asked, trying not let her eagerness she felt show.

"Twenty-three minutes at current speed. The others are already getting into their space coffins, you should join them."

Tali tsk'ed in annoyance even as she marked the time on her omni-tool. She didn't like the name they'd given the insertion pods, even if it was fairly accurate. They were very similar in shape, size and even operation.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" She demanded, rising to her feet while at the same time transferring the feed to her omni-tool.

"Sorry, ma'am, but the communication relays here have been giving us some trouble. It took us a while to decode their transmissions."

That made her pause mid-stride before she dismissed it. This _was_ an important transportation, so heightened security was hardly unexpected. It _was_ slightly surprising that she hadn't been told about the situation, or that they hadn't picked up on until now.

Irrationally, she was sure that the crew of either of the _Normandy _ships she'd served on would have made such an error. But she quickly dismissed this as well, realizing that it was just her annoyance showing through.

"Keep me apprised." She ordered shortly, mounting a narrow ladder and climbed down it to the level below.

"Aye, captain."

Once out of her tiny quarters she made her way to the loading bay, stopping in the arsenal long enough to retrieve her weapons along with a vacuum suit. She wasn't sure if it would be required, but there was little sense in being unprepared. Especially if being wrong would get her the freezing, agonizing death that would come from exposure.

She quickly donned the extra layers, noting that she was now sporting the tell-tale black and gold of Cerberus over the patterned lilac of her enviro-suit.

_Well, at least there will be no question of who was responsible, even if I do look silly in the process._ She thought morosely.

With that out of the way she noted the time, and made haste for the loading bay once more. Time played tricks when one was busy, it seemed, and had left her with only ten minutes to be secured inside her pod.

Without warning her omni-tool flared into life again, the voice tainted by worry.

"Ma'am, there's something wrong with the readings I'm getting." Alex said. "The ship ID doesn't match up to the _Reykjavik_'s, and its emissions are all over the place."

For a moment her blood ran cold, though she didn't stop moving.

"Be more specific, what's wrong the readings?" She asked, worry building within her as well.

"Well, I'm picking up a lot more communications than a cruiser should be capable of emitting, and there's a lot more drive core activity."

Tali calmed down at this, rationalizing it all in her head as she heard it.

"They've probably just been ordered to keep constant contact, and to proceed as quickly as possible." She explained, in an effort to soothe both herself and her operations chief. "What about the ID?"

"I don't even know what's wrong with it. It keeps changing before I can look it up." An exasperated sigh quickly followed this. "I guess they could be doing it to scare anybody off of attacking it, but that's a damn strange way of going about it. All IDs say _Reykjavik_, though."

"So long as they have Shepard with them, then we're still doing this." She said firmly, more for herself that the human on the other side of the line.

"Aye ma'am." There was a pause, which Tali had been certain had been an end to the conversation. "Glad to have worked with someone like you."

Tali was so surprised by the quiet comment that she stumbled for a moment, some of her hold shyness returning in her shock.

"T, thank you." She answered, unsure of what else she should say.

"Don't worry about it. You should really be getting into your pod now, though."

**

* * *

**

It was only when she was inside the Insertion Pod that Tali'Zorah realized how apt the name 'Space Coffin' was for it. Not even a life in the Migrant Fleet could have helped with the feeling of suffocating, locked inside a container that didn't even leave her enough room to scratch her nose, if she'd been outside of her enviro-suit and so inclined.

Add in the fact that its small mass effect generator protected her from all but the most violent of impacts and she was beginning to wonder how anybody had thought this was a viable method of getting insertion.

The only thing that prevented her from trying to flail her way out of the claustrophobic box was the simple fact that apparently someone had had the foresight to put a small monitor on the back of the hatch which showed the progress of the loading, as well as targeting data. But even that was wasted on her, as it was programmed to respond to eye movement instead of gestures. Her faceplate prevented her from seeing anything other than what the monitor felt inclined to let her see, text scrolling at a snail's pace. There were downsides to working with a group that rarely worked with aliens, it seemed.

At the moment it was displaying the current state of each pod, cycling through the life signs and dossiers of each of the inhabitants. She was mildly amused when the monitor degenerated into a string of error messages whenever it came to her pod until it shifted to the next.

Suddenly the monitor shifted, changing instead to a tactical overview of the system.

On it she could see the _Reykjavik_, indicated by a blue circle, passing beside a trio of smaller circles, each one flaring red for a moment and sending out a tiny red dot at it. She only had to look at it a moment to realize that it meant that they were already firing, and that the operation had begun.

Glad to know that her imprisonment inside the tiny shell was nearing an end and eager to be doing something, Tali tensed and tried to build up a small amount of adrenalin. She'd need every advantage she could get once she landed, likely into what would rapidly develop into a firefight.

One of small circles suddenly vanished, followed quickly by another, before the last flared red brightly, a large red triangle leaving it marked, almost comically, with a 'you are here' tag next to it. Then it too vanished. She supposed it was because they'd started up their stealth systems once more, and were already leaving the ambush zone and making good time to the relay.

She frowned grimly, knowing inside that the only way she'd be getting out of the system would either be from success or in the custody of the Alliance. Or, a dark corner of her mind suggested, in the embrace of the Ancestors. It was an unhelpful thought, and she was glad to push it out of her mind with a grim smile of anticipation.

A moment later the smile vanished as her pod hit the hull of the _Reykjavik_.

It was a testament to the amount of force required to pierce the hull of the ship that even with the mass effect field keeping her safe from the sudden stop that she still felt herself rock and hit the sides of the interior. The monitor flared green, and then the front section of her pod opened from the sides and exposed her to a world of silence.

The vacuum of space had invaded the hallway she'd landed in, and in doing so had torn anyone unfortunate to happen to be there out into the inky blackness. It was a fortunate thought that they'd most likely been killed instantly by the sudden dispersal of energy her entrance had caused. Instead of the hostile entry she'd expected there was only quiet.

Frowning in frustration, she instead brought up her omni-tool and began hacking into the ships systems, trying to bring up a schematic and make her way up to the bridge. She had little trouble, worryingly little, but soon enough her arm lit up with a translucent blue image of the ship.

The first thing she noticed was the size. The second was the name of the ship, which she didn't recognize.

_SSV Nietzsche_.

She was relatively certain that, combined with the size and the earlier irregularities in the output, that something had gone terribly wrong.

A moment later she tried to open a connection back to the _Ghost_, to get into contact with Alexander, but was disappointed horrifyingly when it indicated that there the ship in question was no longer available.

Fearing what she would see, she found her eyes drawn upwards towards the breach in the hull, and peered out into the vast expanse of space, trying to find any sign of what might have happened to her ship.

She didn't see the tiny wink of light against the infinite span of stars that she'd been expecting, but a writhing swarm of fighters moving through the distance, each one leaving a short streak of exhaust as they moved.

Shepard had once said that watching a swarm of fighters could be quite beautiful once they were in motion, like a school of fish made of light. She'd taken his word for it at the time, and the battle with the reapers had proven him right, if she allowed herself to be divorced from the outcome of the battle long enough to actually consider it. But right now, the knowledge that she'd just been launched into a ship that, once the fighters returned, would have hundreds of crewman instead of the eighty she'd been expecting.

Hastily she connected to the open channel of the various teams, hoping to coordinate some kind of plan. She found it already ablaze with chatter, the various teams wondering what was going on.

"-at I'm wondering is, where the hell are all the marines? We should be up to our ass in hostiles by now, but nothing!"

"Jason, you locked down the cargo hold yet?"

"No, I'm still lost, goddammit! What the hell is going on here?"

"Anybody know if there're older cruisers floating around, and this is one of 'em?"

"The hell do you think this is, the Migrant? Alliance scraps those things."

"Why the hell isn't this one built like a normal cruiser then, smartass?"

"Because it's a carrier." Tali said into what she suspected would soon degenerate into bickering. "This is the _Nietzsche_."

For a moment her com was silent, before erupting into a chorus of curses, ranging from the offensive to the obscenely vile. As she waited for the others to calm down she uploaded the schematics to their omni-tools, noting as she did that the bridge wasn't too far from where she was.

"Well, shit! Anybody got any bright ideas?"

Tali smiled at that. She was pleased that their first reaction to such a rapid change of odds was not to despair but instead to begin trying to work out a new plan.

"We have to lock down the bridge first. I'm making my way there now, I'll wait for you to catch up." Even as she said this, she was already moving. Or trying to, anyway. The vacuum of space brought with it a dispersion of the mass effect field that allowed for gravity to be created, weakening the effects greatly.

"No need, ma'am. The _Wraith_ dropped us in pretty close, and me inside. We've got everything under control here, but we're going to need any of the pilots from the other teams to make their way up here. Ours got deflected."

Again there was a moment of silence, this time out of a mixture of respect or horror. Tali took advantage of it to think up a course of action that wasn't completely suicidal. Looking out into space, she knew that she would have to deal with them, and their countless pilots, first. If not, their sheer numbers could overwhelm them if they returned.

"Can you close the hanger bays and lock anybody still there inside?"

She was greeted by a light chuckle.

"Yeah, we're qualified to close doors."

"Heh, that'll teach the bastards to shoot up my friends."

"Then do it. I'll make my way to the engineering level instead." She announced, ignoring the idle comment. "If the crew of the _Ghost_ would join me, I'd be grateful for the help. Anybody else not needed at the helm can help secure the cargo bay."

"What the hell, are we gonna skeleton-crew this thing?"

"We're going to have to." Tali answered coolly, amazed at how easily the rebuke came to her. "Unless you feel like asking for help from the Alliance?"

"Hah! You heard the woman, Jayce. Get down to cargo and kill someone for me."

Despite herself, Tali found herself grinning. She'd never admit it, but it was good to once again be confronted by impossible odds. She wondered if it said something about that she didn't realize how unbalanced she felt without an insurmountable obstacle in her path.

She plotted the shortest path the engineering level, noting that she'd be making her way _inside_ the ship rather than down to the lower levels, as with most of the ships she'd worked on. It made her a bit more eager to get there, to see firsthand how the engines of an Alliance dreadnought-sized vessel worked, if her previous reasons for doing so hadn't already been sufficient.

As she did, the map lit up with pings from those of her crew that would be joining her, and she noted that there was only four. She preferred to be optimistic, believing that both of the remaining soldiers of her squad were simply needed at the bridge and not, another unhelpful thought leaping to the forefront of her mind, drifting through space, waiting to die an agonizing death.

The schematics illuminated the path she would have to take, moving first into the heart of the ship and then a relatively short trip on a rapid transit unit. She noted with a small amount of relief that the route was mostly the same for all of her crewmen, allowing them to travel in relative safety.

"Put the barriers up to plug up the holes too." She said, almost as an afterthought as she remember the difficulty of doing so earlier. "I want my ship to be sealed."

"Hah, 'your ship' is it?"

"We'll get on it, ma'am, but you'll need to get down to engineering. I think they know we killed their captain, 'cause they stopped trying to talk to us a while back."

She nodded absently at this, and reached back to draw forth her shotgun.

"Then I'll talk to you once it's secure."

**

* * *

**

Tali'Zorah had once remarked at how few people lived on Alliance ships as opposed to those of the Migrant Fleet, but she was taken aback by how few people there seemed to be aboard the _Nietzsche._ It took her small team half an hour to make their way to the engineering bay, so vast was the ship. But in all that time, they'd only met with the weakest of resistance from a crew that seemed to be little more than the barest minimum of what was required to operate it.

It made sense, in a way. If the Alliance intended to stage an act of piracy, then they would obviously want to keep the crew to a minimum to limit the potential loss of life.

Of course, that wouldn't explain why the ship would have had its fighters already deployed. But there was already so many unanswered questions that Tali decided they would have to wait until a time she could back Miranda up into a corner and beat it out of her.

But the sheer scarceness life in such a massive ship struck a chord inside her, one that cried out against the senseless wastefulness of it all. A ship like this one could likely house thousands with little effort.

Even the engineering level had been almost completely devoid of life, populated by a grand total of fourteen terrified technicians that had apparently been wondering what had been happening the whole time. Once she and those with her had arrived, they had little difficulty in securing the level and forcing those they could to get the systems running once more and locking the others up in a small recess room.

Even with the help of the few they could coerce, however, it soon became clear just how much a monumental task lay in store for them.

A ship the size of the _Nietzsche_ really did need a full crew to operate, and as Tali worked frantically to provide enough power for her handful of men and women to turn the ship back to the relay and then take it to the relative safety of the Terminus systems, where they could wait until Miranda could arrange for a more permanent solution.

As her hands blurred across her terminal, working frantically and still not succeeding, she began to grow desperate enough to ask for additional help. She paused only a second, long enough to connect to the open channel, before returning to her work.

"Has anybody found Shepard yet?" She asked, even now not willing to give up on him. If she had to redouble her efforts once again, then that was what she would have to do.

"Uh, yeah. What's left of 'im, anyways."

"My dad got like that, towards the end." Someone interjected. "Well, except for the burnt to a crisp part. Creep'ed me right out, it did."

"Then send anyone you can spare to engineering, we need all the help we can get." Tali pleaded, feeling truly relieved for the first time since she'd started this insane mission.

"Aye ma'am. Most of us can be there as soon as we can, and the rest of us can follow if you'll allow us to move the stiff."

"_He's not dead!_" She said, surprising herself with the sudden vehemence in her voice.

Awkward silence greeted her for a moment. One of the technicians who'd been working near her shot her a startled look of fear, eyes wide in terror.

She forced herself to calm down, allowing herself to move away from her terminal in order to do so. She was obviously more stressed than she realized, if such a little thing could set her off so.

"Just, just bring him here, okay? We need to get out here are quickly as possible."

"Aya ma'am."

There was none playful chatter after that, and she broke the connection when it became clear that they had no intention of talking further. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to the terminal in order to resume her work.

Only to be rocked off her feet as the ship suddenly moved violently.

Once again she connected to the channel, this time addressing the bridge,

"What was _that_?" She demanded, her voice no doubt coming out a great deal harsher than she meant it to.

"The fighters opened fire, ma'am. They're demanding that we open the hangers and surrender, or they'll blow the ship."

For a moment Tali's mind was a blank, trying to process just what was going on.

How had Shepard dealt with these sort of things? She'd never seen him so much as waver even when things had been at their worst. The pressures of command had never gotten to him, never once stopped him doing what needed to be done.

What needed to be done. She thought for a moment on what _truly_ needed to be done to get out of this situation. They needed to disable or somehow get rid of the fighters long enough to reach the relay, where they could get to safety and rest easy.

The fighters had to go.

And then she knew what had to be done.

"Open the hangers, let them in. But isolate all our teams from them. Keep all the hallways we need open, but let them have the rest."

"What?"

"The hell're you talking about? They'll get through!"

"Did you crack your skull when we got hit?"

"Just do it!" She hissed urgently. "Tell me when they're all confirmed to be inside the ship, and keep the hangers open."

"If you're sure, ma'am..."

"Yes. I am."

"Opening the hangers now, then."

"I sure hope you know what you're doing, lady."

Tali didn't bother answering, but instead started working once more, this time hacking into the systems to find the mass effect field generators. What she was going to do next would earn the disgust and hatred of everyone she knew, and label her as one of the worst villains in recent history. But if she was going to get both herself and Shepard out of this, then it would have to be done.

Like asking Shala'Raan to exile her, like agreeing to become a member of a terrorist organization, this too would be one of the sacrifices she would have to make. Not a sacrifice of her own self, however.

Her probing into the ship's security systems soon revealed what she needed to know, and soon after she had complete control over the mass effect field generators. Once she was certain of that she could access them with ease, she set about creating a program that she could run and instantly do what she had planned. Her hands raced across her terminal as she coded furiously, working hard for a purpose she didn't want to think too hard about.

She wondered briefly if Shepard would still want her when he learned what she'd done.

Eventually she completed the program, and without even pausing she went back to her previous labours. There was no sense in neglecting that, after all. The ship still needed power to reach its destination, and she was still one of the most talented engineers on the ship.

A few minutes later her omni-tool interrupted her work, a voice breaking her concentration.

"They're here, ma'am. We're currently trying to stop them from hack through the locks, but it won't be long before they're through."

Tali drew a deep breath at this, steeling herself for what would come.

"Open all doors in their sections. Leave no room for someone to hide in." She ordered, forcing herself to remain calm despite her own revulsion.

"Ma'am?"

"Do it."

"Aye." She only had to wait a moment for a reply. "Done."

"Good..." She said slowly, closing her eyes hard for a moment and swallowing hard. "If anybody asks about this, tell them I did it. No one else."

"What?"

She didn't answer, instead executing the program she'd crafted earlier.

All across the ship, the barriers that kept out the great void of space suddenly dropped. Hundreds of crewmen, their only crime being in the wrong place in the wrong time, were exposed to the ravages of space without any protection. She could only imagine their horror, even if it matched her own.

But it had to be done.

**

* * *

**

**AN:** I'll be honest with you guys: I don't like this chapter. I spent a week trying to get it right, failed horribly, then gave up and started anew. In fact, half of this chapter was made in whatever time I could spare yesterday and today. Towards the end of this chapter, (Sometime around 2-3 in the morning) I was actively looking for a way to stop it.

There's a good chance that when I have free time I'll make it suck less.

And in the morning, I'll repeat my shameful ritual of after-the-fact corrections. Looking forward to it!


	4. Chapter 4

**AN**: Join me, dear reader, as I throw myself boldly into the depths of madness to dredge up something _mean_! But before that:

**1****:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got.** **I'm also not receiving any pay for this. **Although, if I was, would I tell anybody?

**2: Reviewers are ninjas in disguise. Readers are pirates. **Logic dictates that those who do both are therefore the pinnacle of creation. It's like science.

**3: **I apologize for the use of the malaise. Because for the longest time I thought it meant something completely different.

Let's sap the colour from your soul!

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter IV: A Matter of Life and Death**

**

* * *

**

"What happened out there, Miranda? They knew we were coming!"

Few people had had the strange fortune of hearing the normally polite, even shy Quarian engineer in the throes of fury, but everyone present at the bridge of the _Nietzsche_ were becoming one of those select few. Unfortunately, they didn't have the history with her to know how strange it was to hear her shouting down what she thought to be the leader of a borderline terrorist organisation, and so assumed that it was simply par for the course.

Miranda Lawson, however, did know this, and in knowing was cognizant of just how badly things had gone. She just didn't care too much though, considering the distance between them. And knowing _that_, she felt perfectly at ease in releasing the next titbit of information.

"Of course they did. I told them about it."

Which was just about the single worst thing she could have said at that moment, as half a dozen faces were instantly riveted on her face in the large monitor at the front of the helm, twelve eyes going from varying degrees of minor interest and distracted to shock and stony disbelief. For what seemed like an eternity, suffocating silence invaded the conversation, leaving only the quiet sounds of the ship as it hummed and beeped its way through space.

Tali'Zorah, behind her mask, was wide-eyed in surprise and for that span of time could only gape stupidly at what the woman had just dropped on them. But then her righteous anger rose like bile in her throat, and she suddenly wished that she had taken the time to learn Shepard's native tongue. It was full of the kinds of words she wanted to scream at this woman.

"You did _what?_" She hissed instead, advancing threateningly at the monitor. A wasted gesture, she knew, but she needed to do _something_.

"I had to." Miranda informed her calmly, sparing a glance to the side for a moment. "After all, it would look suspicious for an 'until recently unknown cell' of an organisation I personally disbanded to suddenly appear. I had to report it."

"You, we-" There weren't words for what she wanted to say.

Which seemed to suit Miranda fine, as she kept on talking in that same frustratingly calm voice.

"And I only alerted them that we had recently intercepted transmissions regarding some kind of ambush on the _Reykjavik_, along with references to old Cerberus pseudonyms previously believed accounted for. I can hardly be held accountable that they changed their plans so dramatically."

This was answered by angry mutterings from everyone on the bridge.

"The hell you can't, harpy-woman." A particularly loud muttering grumbled, which was promptly accompanied by quiet sniggering.

"In any case, you were successful, and now that you have arrived at the rendezvous point we can start our work. The _Nietzsche_ was actually a lucky haul, considering. "

This elicited a dark scowl from the Quarian, who for now saw no point in discussing the matter of the betrayal. Not until the two of them were in shotgun range, in any case.

Which brought them to their current location.

The Shrike Abyssal, on the outskirts of the galactic disk and deep in the terminus system, had been a wonderfully vacant star cluster even before the Reapers had passed through them, leaving only a trail of death and destruction. Tali would have doubted that anyone had even been there since then if she didn't know better. Somewhere out there was a black ops facility that would finally be taking care of Shepard.

"A team has already been dispatched to you; they should be there within the day."

"Just a _team_?" Tali sputtered incredulously, her arms folding across her chest in irritation.

Miranda's lips made the tiny, smug smirk that had annoyed almost everyone that had worked with the woman for any length of time.

"It's a large team." She explained with a placating voice. "They'll be converting your ship to meet their needs, which should suit everyone. A base or station could be discovered and raided, but if the council discovers where you're hiding you can just relocate. And, of course, you can defend yourself."

Sound reasons, to be sure, but Tali wondered just what would have happened had everything gone according to plan. A battle cruiser could hardly be retrofitted as easily as a carrier, and even if could be done there'd hardly be enough space left for any kind of weapon systems. Would they instead have landed at a research facility? That seemed most likely, but Miranda no doubt thought that there was little point in diverting her resources while at the same time revealing the location of a secret facility when she could simply drop off what Tali needed to get her project going and then let her deal with it instead.

But, it wasn't as if she'd been looking forward to being stuck on some orbital platform for who knows how long. And the _Nietzsche_, while hardly as interesting to work on as the _Normandy_ had been, was still interesting enough to make her want to explore its capabilities more. After all, carriers were one of humanity's greater innovations to space warfare. It had given them an edge against the Turian Hierarchy, an edge that many in hindsight said had been one of the factors that allowed them an eventual victory at Shanxi. Any victory at all was surprising, really. The Turians had had almost a millennia head start on their enemies.

But human history had never been a province that Tali had held any great curiosity for, and she allowed herself give a curt nod at the monitor.

"A full crew will be arriving, I assume? We can't maintain this ship much longer with what we have."

"Of course." Miranda answered promptly. "There should be a full crew arriving, mostly contracted specialists and a few cells we can spare. Oh, yes, and a familiar face. He will be acting as your executive officer, helping you administer the _Nietzsche_ properly."

Tali would have bristled at the implication that she needed help if it hadn't been woefully accurate. She didn't feel entirely comfortable with being in charge of even the tiny crew she had now, and she wondered if they'd only been so civil so far due to necessity. Sure, they respected her. She knew that much. Her work in the engineering level had seen to that.

She hadn't left the place for two days, working ceaselessly to provide the energy needed for use the relays. She still hadn't slept yet, in fact.

Maybe that was why she was so irritable at the moment.

She let out a deep sigh, and wished she could take off her helmet to rub her temples. Even so, the thousands of tiny aches had finally taken their toll on her body, and the only thing she wanted to do now was rest.

"Very well." She said to the room at large, Miranda included. "We will wait for your people."

She waved her hand at the screen, severing the connection with her omni-tool before the other woman could say anything else.

"There's nothing else that needs to be done, for now. I'll be getting some rest in the captain's quarters. Anybody else who needs to can do so as well, just keep enough people on watch that we don't get blindsided. Spread the news around."

Her own sigh was soon echoed by the others present. It had been a long two days since their arrival on the carrier, and many were showing the signs of fatigue even if they managed to get some rest in the form of naps. And with the promise of a fresh crew, it didn't seem likely that it would be necessary for a repeat of the past few days.

She left them to their own devices, content that they'd be able to work out a working system amongst themselves. They didn't need her to hold their hand, after all.

Besides, if she was going to be a terrorist then it was high time she started being a little reckless.

**

* * *

**

True to her word, Miranda's team arrived before the end of the day.

Tali was shaken awake when they docked, groaning sleepily to be left alone. And, an hour later when she suddenly realized that she'd been obeyed and that she'd slept right through their arrival, she was on her feet and moving once more. A few minutes later of frantic activity she left the captain's quarters and was hastily trying to access the ship's comm systems.

"Tali'Zorah, nice to see you up. We were worried when you didn't greet us in person."

Her head snapped to the side at the familiar voice, surprised at it.

Jacob Taylor, one of the former members of Shepard's famous squad of commandoes. And, apparently, a member of Hecate. His crisp uniform was made of up the sleek blue and white that she'd seen other officers of the organization, though his seemed a little more ornate than theirs. Maybe he'd had a promotion since they'd last met?

It had, after all, been a few years since the important members of the _Normandy_ had separated, each one leaving to rally whatever factions they could. Tali made a mental note to ascertain what had become of them once Shepard was back. He'd likely want to meet up with them once more, and celebrate their victory.

"Sorry," She said lamely, knowing full well that she had failed in her duty. "I was just so tired, and-"

"Don't worry about it. Your crew told me you deserved the rest, and I believed them. I've just been getting everyone sorted out, getting people in place. I'll give you a list of the new crew roster, and their assignments." Jacob said reassuringly. Then he grinned at her. "I'm sure I'd be dead on my feet too, if I had to keep this thing going for two days without sleep."

Tali nodded, glad that everything had been taken care of in her absence. In truth, she hadn't really been looking forward to dealing with everything so soon.

"Is there anything that needs to be taken care of?" She asked reflexively, and almost kicked herself for doing so.

The human merely smiled lightly and shook his head.

"Not used to command yet, huh? I wasn't either, but you'll get used to it. We've had a good role model, after all."

Shepard, again. Of course Jacob would have looked up to him, everyone did.

Feeling truly at ease for the first time in a long while, Tali allowed herself a smile of her own as she answered.

"I'm not so sure." She said, her voice full of mirth. "He _did_ eventually punch that reporter. Hardly commendable, giving a civilian a black eye."

The laughter that rang out from the man's mouth was infectious, and soon enough they were reminiscing about the antics of their former crewmates even as they walked the halls of the _Nietzsche_. They didn't say what was painfully obvious to both: That most of those crewmen were dead, either from the destruction of both the _Normandy_s or from the various skirmishes with the Reapers. They didn't say that they'd never see these people again, even as they began work on bringing one of them back from the grave.

They also didn't talk about the hijacking, and what had been necessary to accomplish it. The deaths of hundreds of human beings were squarely on her shoulders. Although there was room for justification (they _were_ going to arrest them, after all), the manner in which they'd died was inexcusable.

Soon enough they found themselves drifting throughout the ship, discussing amongst themselves the work being done on the ship.

It was good to see the ship fully populated. She enjoyed seeing the halls full of people and activity, a stark contrast to the deathly silence of emptiness that had reigned for so long before that. Her ship no longer seemed like a tomb that she was invading, but was once more a living thing that she was a part of.

Many of the engineers that had arrived were working in the hallways, setting up a network of... _something_. It looked like a secondary communications and security system, but they were much more advanced than she expected they'd need. Alliance Ships were generally kept up to date in regards to technological advances, with even the oldest of vessels being limited only by their drive core and heat sink capabilities.

There were other things they were installing, but most of them looked radically different from anything she'd seen before. There were no hubs connected to them for someone to connect to, but they seemed to connect to every system aboard the ship.

Everywhere they went, there seemed to be some measure of installation going on. She was wondering how so many people had arrived in so short an amount of time, but then she remembered that her ship was built out of docking bays, allowing several ships to enter at once. Of course they'd dock to several in order to maximize efficiency, much like her own people did with the liveships.

She didn't realize until they were standing inside a storage room that was still in the process of conversion that Jacob had been guiding her here, and not aimlessly wandering the halls of the _Nietzsche_.

She couldn't tell immediately what exactly the room was being converted into at first, but when she noticed the large amount of scientists milling about as well as a few scattered medical apparatus or a series of screens that looked like they were monitoring a complex flow of data. She'd watched the segments of code flow by, and been completely mystified at it.

But her curiosity for the machinery was overshadowed by her concern when she saw the body of Shepard lying prone on the slab.

She was forcibly reminded of when she had first found him, dead for all intents and purposes until he spoke.

He wasn't speaking now.

The arm that he'd damaged was now only a skeletal remnant of what it had been, all former flesh gone. His other limbs showed signs of similar damage, and she could guess why. Without any reasonable method of restraining him without risk of damage, the Alliance had had no choice but to hope he limited his movements. It looked like they'd met with limited success, however, as all across his body there was the unearthly glow or the steely glimmer along bone. His body was connected to all manner of wires and cables, a mess of electronics that had no business in a living being.

It made him look like a machine rather than a person. Like something that merely needed to be repaired rather than revived.

She knew the fear was irrational, that they were probably just trying revive him. But seeing him like that made her want to shout at the scientists for- She wasn't sure what for. There was no way of knowing for sure what they were doing at this point, but she gathered that they were trying to alter his implants in some way.

Jacob must have picked up on her unease because he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"They're doing their best to bring him back." He said reassuringly. "In the meantime, they're keeping his neural activity low to stop him from damaging what's left of himself."

Tali nodded sullenly, though she didn't feel much better. At least something was being done.

"How long?" She asked quietly, not wanted to disturb anyone from their work.

Jacob sighed deeply and looked away from her.

"Miranda never gave me a date, only said that it'd be a while. Days, weeks, maybe even months."

Nodding again, she turned her attention back to Shepard. At least he wasn't hurting himself anymore, or trapped in a state of fear.

"Better than two years though, eh?" Jacob said with small smile.

No answer came, as Tali'Zorah had already turned away and was beginning to leave.

**

* * *

**

Time moves strangely when waiting for something. In Tali's case, it felt like it wasn't moving at all. Hours blurred into days, days into weeks and then suddenly she realized that it had only been a month since the triumph over the Reapers. It had felt like an eternity had crawled by her, teasing her with the fate of the man she loved.

There was little in the way of things for her to do beyond supervising the engineering teams in installing whatever it was they were putting on the ship. Much of the information about the equipment they were putting up was classified for her, with the various teams merely shrugging their shoulders at her and saying that they knew almost as much as she did about the matter. But, as she'd earlier suspected, it was indeed connected to almost every system of the ship. It made a labyrinthine network across the whole of the ship, running across walls and ceilings in a maddeningly complex array. She didn't envy the engineer whose job it was to make sure it was all connected properly.

After a week of working on it with no end in sight or even a purpose she simply left the engineers to finish up on their own. It all seemed so very pointless, working merely for a distraction than anything else.

She found herself spending more and more time alone, sinking into a malaise of brooding and anxiety. She helped whenever she was needed, and even listened whenever one of the humans felt the need for a sympathetic ear and could only find her, but for the most part she'd just wanted to be left alone.

The picture she'd salvaged from the wreck of the _Normandy_ now had a place of its own next to her bed, though she often caught herself reaching out to pick it up simply to look at. Or stare at, the times she didn't catch herself. She was sure that hours of her life had simply vanished that way.

As she lay on her bed, fighting hard against the need to roll onto her side and look at the picture once more and wishing that her com unit would crackle into life with the news that Shepard was alive and well once more, and was even now on his way to make everything right again.

But the message never came, and she was still so very alone.

Jacob, as much as he tried to keep her stable, actually hurt her more than he realized. He and Shepard had more in common than anybody had imagined, and with the absence of the one the other served only to remind her of what she had lost.

And visiting the lab that was working on Shepard was out of the question. Initially she'd tried to keep abreast of the progress, but she quickly realized that biomachinery and medical implants required a substantial different education than what she had received when growing up. And so long as they were sure that they didn't want to outfit Shepard with an engine or two she was sure that her expertise wouldn't be called on.

Her omni-tool flared into life suddenly, its holographic interface appearing without her prompting.

She didn't notice it at first, her eyes faced upwards towards the ceiling rather than at her hands. But when it began to chime repeatedly, alerting her that a connection had just been established.

More curious than worried, she moved into a sitting position, regarding the piece of machinery on her hand sceptically. It had been top of the line four years ago when Shepard had first purchased it for her, and she refused to believe that it would begin acting out on her after so short an amount of time. The Serrice Council made things to last and still work well right up until they didn't work at all.

She noted that the connection was text-only, a method of communication usually reserved only for those who had a need for absolute silence.

The holographic interface displayed only a single message so far.

_Tali?_

She looked at it for a moment, wondering at what exactly was going on. She examined the connection before answering, trying to establish who exactly was trying to talk to her. Instead of a name, however, there was merely a long, unintelligible string of symbols from what looked like the bastard child of every conceivable alphabet in Council Space. It was worse than nonsense, as garbled words or code might have revealed _something_. If there was a method to the madness whatever she was connected to, she couldn't see it.

Hesitating for a moment, she shrugged and finally indulged her curiosity.

_Yes?_ Sensing that perhaps more was expected of her, she continued. _Who are you?_

She waited for a response. There was a moment's pause before her omni-tool once more lit up with a message.

_I understand you._

Tali's curiosity turned to confusion at this, now thoroughly engrossed in the mystery of whatever was happening. She quickly typed in a reply, wondering what exactly was going on.

_What do you understand?_

_You. I know Khellish._

She suddenly realized that the messages she'd been sending had been in her native tongue, though why that would be a cause for- whatever it was her anonymous speaker was going through was a mystery to her.

_So what?_ She typed in. _Don't you have a translator?_

Another pause went by, this time longer than the first.

_I don't think so._

The Quarian quirked her head to the side, wondering what exactly _that_ was supposed to mean. She was about to answer when the connection was abruptly severed, leaving her only with the log of what had been exchanged between them.

A thoughtful frown on her face, she rose from her bed and made to leave her room, intent on discovering if anybody else had been contacted by strange, nonsense-spouting people. She made it as far as the door, and almost ran straight into Jacob, who looked as if he had been about to knock before she'd opened the doors.

"How did you-" He began, surprise all over his face.

"I didn't." She interrupted. "Coincidence. Has anybody tried talking to you lately?"

The confusion on the dark human's face turned to one of amusement, a smile quirking onto his lips.

"Several people. Yourself included. Maybe you can narrow it down a bit?"

Tali scowled, but decided that if whatever had contacted her had also tried talking to Jacob, he'd have remembered it.

"Never mind." She said dismissively, letting some of her irritation show.

One of Jacob's eyebrows raised slightly at that, and his arms folded.

"Are you doing alright? You've been cooped up there for a while." He asked with a not of concern in his voice.

Tali debated whether she should share the strange interaction she'd just had with someone that she wasn't even sure really existed as more than a glitch in her omni-tool's software, but decided against it. She had enough doubt about the stability of her personality going around, she supposed.

"Yes, I'm alright." She said unconvincingly, before a thought occurred to her. "Something just got into my suit, and it's been messing with me for a while."

"Ahh," The human said, nodding to himself. "Well, let me know if there's something I can do to help."

She was about to close the door again, before she thought better of it.

"Did you want to ask me something?" She asked, wondering what it was he had been doing outside her door in the first place.

Jacob looked a bit embarrassed, and let his arms fall to his sides again.

"No, I was just wondering if you were bothered by what... Happened. Earlier. Both on the _Normandy_ and here. We have a few councillors with us who'd be willing to help."

Rationally, Tali knew that he was just concerned about her well being. That, as a friend and comrade he was merely trying to make sure that she hadn't been broken inside. And, truth be told, she wasn't too sure that his concern wasn't warranted.

But she was just so frustrated at everything that she answered with more vitriol than she intended.

"I don't want to talk about it." She said in a voice that said, clearly, that reminding her of either occurrences had decidedly not endeared him to her in any way. Without waiting for an answer she turned away, and with a wave of her hand the door closed before Jacob protest.

**

* * *

**

A few days later Tali was certain that her omni-tool was somehow being invaded by one of the strangest VIs she'd ever encountered. She'd taken the thing apart and reassembled it several times, replaced and formatted her software as well. But somehow, it still managed to spout its nonsense at her.

It connected to the strange server several times a day now, each time without her permission and, on one occasion, even after she had powered it down. She'd been ready to chalk it up to a virus, but she'd discarded that line of thought after the second time she'd purged all of its memory banks. Nothing she did seemed capable of stopping it.

Not that, after a few interactions with it, she particularly wanted to. Each conversation lasted only a few minutes before the connection was severed, but sometimes they simply picked up from where they'd left off.

She'd never admit it, but her curiosity had finally gotten the better of her. She looked forward to the chime the signified a connection, even to the point that she would drop what she was doing in order to converse with it.

Sitting in her room, skimming through the reports that updated her on the progress of whatever it was that was happening on her ship, she waited for the chime that would distract her from this.

As if waiting for just that moment, her omni-tool lip up once again, sounding a successful connection. She moved away from her console and focussed on her interface, eager to see what kind of absurdities would be spoken at her today.

But it didn't speak. The connection was there, yes, but unlike all the other times it didn't initiate the conversation. After a while of waiting, Tali decided to take the initiative.

_Hello?_ She typed, and after a moment's wait added to it. _Are you there?_

_Yes._

Another pause.

_You look tired._

Tali's blood ran cold at this, her first instinct being to look around the room for anything that might conceal a monitoring device. Failing to see anything out of place, and knowing that there had been precious little time for anybody to sneak into her quarters and install anything she forced herself to calm down. The VI, or whoever was on the other side of the connection, was simply messing with her. With a frown, she looked back down at the omni-tool trying to think of some appropriately scathing reply to throw back. But it seemed she'd been beaten to the punch, as it was already

_Stop that. It makes me dizzy._

_Stop what?_ She wanted to shout it, but the mundane nature of letters would not let such a thing show.

_Shaking your helmet. Everything moves too fast._

Again, she was stopped dead by the complaint. Almost involuntarily her eyes flickered across the inside of her helmet, wondering if somehow _it_ had been infected with a virus. That would certainly explain why she had failed spectacularly at fixing her omni-tool.

But that couldn't be right, her suit was protected by some of the most sophisticated protection ever developed by the Migrant Fleet. Even the _Geth_ would have trouble getting past that security, let alone some sort of half-assed VI.

_You're lying._

_I love your face when you're angry._

_Shut up!_

_Sorry._

And with that, the connection dropped out without ceremony.

Tali merely stared for a while, surprised at how loudly her own heartbeat sounded in her ears. In irritation she unhooked the omni-tool from her wrist and tossed it across the room, knowing that even that would not deter whatever was speaking to her through it, And, if she was honest with herself, even with the nonsense having taken a hard turn into the provinces of the creepy, she would still try to talk to it. There was just something morbidly interesting about it.

With a sigh, she went back to her reports.

Only for her omni-tool to flare into life again, the chime sounding again.

Confused, she reached over and attached it to her wrist once more.

_I'm really sorry._

Tali merely shook her head at this, reminded of a child that had been caught doing something they knew they shouldn't. With a sigh, she decided that it simply wasn't worth bearing a grudge against something that probably didn't understand what it was doing wrong in the first place.

_Don't worry about._

_I just wanted to see you again. Sorry._

The Quarian engineer was suddenly wondering if it really _was_ a bad VI, or rather a _very_ sophisticated, borderline AI. She supposed it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. Hecate consisted of former Cerberus members, and all those terrible research decisions couldn't _all_ have been the work of a single misguided human.

That may have been what they'd been installing into the _Nietzsche_, been hooking up to every-

Tali felt her heart race at the implications even as she felt a chill run up her spine.

But wait- Again? She worked frantically with her omni-tool.

_You've seen me before?_

_Yes._

Her mind was aflame with confusion, wonder and not a little fear. _Something_ had taken a keen interest in her, it seemed. Before she had a chance to ask anything, however, her omni-tool flared with a new message.

_You need to wake me. The dreams hurt._

Tali didn't even know where to begin with that. Her mouth opened and closed stupidly as she tried to figure out what exactly was being asked of her. The AI was asking her to wake it? What did that even_ mean_? Machines didn't sleep. And she didn't even want to consider what they might dream of. It probably involved software, or strings of code.

_How?_

There was the pause again.

_Ask Miranda. They talk about her, often._

And with that, it disconnected. Again.

Tali glared at her omni-tool resentfully, daring it to give her something more to work with. Or to confuse her further. But this time it remained quiet, and Tali allowed her arm to sink as she mulled over what had been said.

Before she was fully conscious of what she was doing she was requesting a connection to Miranda Lawson, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited.

It was a short wait, and she soon found herself looking into the glare of what looked like a tired human.

"Do you have any idea how late it is?" She demanded, annoyance tingeing her voice.

"You're awake, though." Tali protested, not bothered by her tone. She'd been inoculated to it from working in close proximity over the course of their mission to the Collector's base.

"I am _now_." Miranda grumbled darkly, before glaring at the woman on the other side of their screen once more. "Well, what do you want?"

"My omni-tool is talking to me." Tali said, and suddenly became aware of how silly that sounded. But she pressed on, resolved to make some kind of sense out of this. "It asked me to wake it. And that its dreams hurt."

Miranda stared blankly at her, a feat Tali had long suspected the woman was incapable of. Then she looked away from the screen, yawning as she did so. Tali could only watch as the other woman looked off into the distance, her eyes flickering across something that was unseen to the screen.

"That's strange..." She muttered, then turned back to Tali. "I'm forwarding some documents to you. Bring them to the lab, and _make_ someone read them."

Tali's annoyance turned to concern.

"Is something wrong with Shepard?"

Miranda smiled lightly, then disconnected.

Tali was beginning to really dislike having the people/entities she was speaking with suddenly disconnect without warning. And it wasn't as if she could glare or complain to anybody, either. With a sigh, she rose to her feet and began moving.

There was no sense in waiting around.

**

* * *

**

She'd had to prod one of the scientists awake when she arrived at the lab, a little surprised that they weren't still awake. A glance at her suit's internal monitor revealed that it was, in fact, four in the morning according to Earth time. She hadn't noticed before now, though.

But she'd sent the documents to his omni-tool, and demanded that he read them then and there. As he did so, she forced herself to look around the room, looking around the room for the body of Shepard.

And found he was conspicuously absent. Now that she had time, she noticed that the room had noticeably changed from a humble, makeshift lab into what now looked like the heart of some kind of mechanical cavern, with long bundles of wires hanging down from the ceiling like stalactites. Occasionally, some segment of the wall would shift slowly or a monitor would flash for a moment.

Instead of the table where he'd been, there was a massive pillar of steel, a thousand cables erupting from it in all directions and soft lights along its surface. She found herself pacing around it, fascinated by the alien gleam of the metal as well as its formation. There was no knowing what it was for, but she wished she'd been here to watch all this accrue.

"That can't be right!" The scientist exclaimed suddenly, by now on his feet. It was followed by a few startled moans from some of the lighter sleepers in the room.

Tali ignored him, transfixed by the pillar. It _glowed_ in a crazy pattern of orange, their light swelling from bright to dim in a slow rhythm. It didn't seem to be fixed, however, and changed its patterns with each swelling.

Fascinated, she continued her slow circling of it, wondering if seeing all of it would somehow reveal its purpose.

Behind her, a small commotion was commencing as more of the scientists read the reports. The lights flickered on, bathing the room in an eye-stinging brightness. With the gloom banished Tali could see more of the room, and noted that the most of the machines seemed to have some element of the soft orange glow.

Mildly curious, she strained her suit's hearing modules in order to listen in on what she could of their conversation. Unsurprisingly, however, their speech was much too quick and excited to make much sense of.

"But we locked down his-"

"Why didn't we spot this sooner is what I want to know."

"How is he _doing_ it?"

"Should we really-"

The chatter degenerated into low whispers and hisses, so Tali resumed her inspection with a light shrug.

As she moved along it she at last arrived at what looked like the front of it. The shroud of cables and wires at the top all seemed to converge at this point, and the dancing orange glow refused to move over a long impression in the pillar. It seemed to be made of a different metal, and had something written on it in big, azure lettering. It took her a moment to decipher what it meant, unfamiliar as she was with human languages.

_Project Eutychus_

And, in smaller lettering, near the bottom. _These_ words she recognized easily, as she'd seen them many times before.

_John Shepard_

Her head snapped towards the scientists, intent on getting some kind of answer out of them before.

But they didn't seem to be concerned by her sudden, as they were now swarming across the room, each one occupying some corner or niche of the machinery, though one approached her hesitantly.

"Miss Zorah?" She asked timorously, her eyes flickering across the room to her peers. "Could you please step away from there, please?"

The Quarian levelled the timid human a dark look that was somewhat lessened by the fact that her eyes were mostly obscured by her faceplate. But by the way the scientist shrunk away from her gaze some of it had made it through.

"What is going on?" She demanded, her voice hard. "Where is Shepard?"

"Uhm, w, well, t-that's one of those tricky questions, isn't it?" The young woman stammered out, before taking a deep breath and pressing on quickly. "I mean, some people would say he's dead, and that-"

"_Where is he_?" She didn't mean to shout. She hadn't wanted to vent her frustration on what was obviously an already very frightened and tired subordinate. But apparently what she had meant was entirely different from what actually happened.

The young woman stumbled backwards, tripping over her own legs in her haste to recoil.

"Omigoshpleasedon'tspacemeIonly-"

"Tali?"

The woman in question felt her heart skip a beat at the familiar voice. A voice that had been plaguing her dreams lately, invading her waking hours with sweet memories.

The Quarian whirled around, all anger forgotten in the instant she'd heard that voice.

"John?" She asked, disbelief and happiness in voice. "Are you there?"

"I, I'm not sure. Everything is..."

His voice drifted off into silence, even as she suddenly realized that it seemed to be coming from just about everywhere. Her omni-tool, the medical monitors, the PA speakers and even the inside of her suit. They all spoke with _his_ voice.

"Everything is wrong."

**

* * *

**

**AN:** Yeah, bet you weren't expecting a new chapter quite so early, eh? Strange things happen when I have time on my hands. Though I may not be able to keep up this pace, I hope to keep it going for as long as I can. Also, I kind of wanted to shift the day I gotta get the chapters done to Friday. Done with school, don't have to deal with this 'working for money' garbage and gives me a great morale boost to put the extra effort in.

I've been waiting to get to the next few chapters like you wouldn't _believe_. There's one specific scene in the next chapter that's been replaying in the back of my head ever since I started this thing. Brownie points to whoever can suss it out!

No brownie points realizing what was going on with The Reveal™ before it happened. Because I am subtle like a purple elephant in a giant parka and one of those glasses with the rubber nose and mustachio on it.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: **Hey, you know how I said that there was a scene in this chapter that I wanted to get to? Yeah, can't do that yet. I know, you're crushed. I realized that I'd omitted a lot of relevant information and scenes in order to meet my own deadlines, stuff that I _had_ to get to in order for things to make sense. It's mostly just to tie a few loose ends, establish a few facts.

Also, remember when I said 8-10 chapters? Turns out, I was optimistic. It's a failing, I know. So far I'm guessing at 12 (being the bottom limit planned out so far) -14 (which is just another guess).

Wait, y'know what? Disregard all estimations I make. I obviously suck at them.

**1:**I totally own all of the _Bioware_ characters, settings and whatever else they got. Also, I'm getting a great big sack of cash for this. **Wait, no, I'm just delusional. Damn. I **_**don't**_** own the **_**Bioware**_** stuff. And I'm still doing this just for giggles.**

**2: Reviewers will receive a phantom hug.** Readers, favoriter's and alerters are also appreciated, so they can have one too.

**3:** I apologize for the use of the word simulacrum. It just looks so interesting.

WARNING: This chapter may cause you to frown. Or titter, in places. Both are perfectly acceptable. I consider this chapter to be a bit of a sabbatical, really.

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter V: Spectral Visage**

**

* * *

**

Tali didn't know what to think.

On the one hand, Shepard was alive. On the other, there was a good chance that he was now one of the more difficult classifications of life, right alongside the Geth and other forms of AI. After all, having one's mind infused into every system of a dreadnought-sized space vessel was bound to muddy up the boundaries of conventional life.

It was hard not to be happy, though. Even if she couldn't hold or see him, his simple presence was enough. To know that she could speak and hear him answer did much to slow the fury building inside her.

But it was building. She had only to hear him try to muddle out how to use any of the systems to which he was connected to be reminded of what had been done to him. She could only imagine the confusion he was going through, trying to reason out how exactly he was supposed to do _anything_. She supposed that it was something like learning to walk again for him, but worse. At least he'd only had two legs. She could only guess at how much he had to deal with in regards to the _Nietzsche_.

"What did you _do_ to him?" She demanded at the room in general, turning a glare at the young woman she'd frightened earlier.

"I'm right here, you know." Shepard's voice protested, vaguely. He sounded distracted, likely experimenting with his new form.

"I, we, I'm only an assistant!" The human stammered defensively, raising her hands in an effort to placate. "I only do what they tell me to!"

Tali clicked her tongue in irritation at this and turned to one of the other scientists who were even now working at their terminals, frantically working. As much as she wanted answers, she was loathe to possibly cause Shepard any harm that might arise due to one of the people trying to bring him back not doing what they were supposed to.

Instead, she requested a connection to the one woman she _knew_ would have answers.

"Ah, Tali." Miranda Lawson said coolly. "Right on time."

"What did you do to Shepard?"

"Still he- _what the hell did I just do?_"

"Ah, I see Shepard's back among the living." She sniffed, not quite dismissively. "Technically speaking, in any case."

"Answer me!" Tali shouted.

"Calm down." Miranda scolded, her expression hardening. "If you thought rationally about the matter you would no doubt be able to know."

"That's amazing!" Shepard exclaimed suddenly, obviously not paying attention anymore. "How am I doing that?"

Tali tried her best to ignore him for now, as well as fight the grin that was working its way onto her lips at his antics. A part of her was wondering if he was trying to distract her on purpose, that he already knew what had happened but didn't want her to.

"What are you talking about?"

"What other technology do you know of that can reanimate a dead body?"

"Just tell me!" Tali hissed angrily, her previous frustration returning with surprising alacrity.

"Dragon Teeth, Tali." Miranda informer her with a small note of pride in her voice. "While our initial research into them proved unsuccessful, we _were_ able to confirm their ability to revive a long dead specimen."

The Quarian sputtered wildly at this revelation, aghast at the implications. Dragon Teeth. Just saying the words were enough to make her remember fighting against swarms of shrieking beasts, each one wearing a parody of a face made of bone and steel.

"_You used reaper technology on him?_" She cried out, wondering just how anyone could think that was a good idea. And then she remembered that she had sent the information on Project Lazarus to Shala'Raan. For a moment she was afraid of the consequences of her actions, before she remembered that it would be a long time before their people had enough resources to make use of the technology a viable option. There was still time to warn her aunt of the danger.

A thoughtful frown passed over her features. There was still time to give warning, if any other Quarian would be willing to listen to her. She was certain that by now she'd been exiled.

"Yes, though at the time we thought it was Geth technology." Miranda acknowledged with a nod of her head, oblivious to the woman's inner turmoil. "We spent a very long time backwards engineering them, but once we did bringing him back was a relatively simple matter. Unfortunately, it seems our research wasn't thorough enough."

"What?" Both Tali and Shepard said in unison, both snapped out of their reveries.

"Ah, Shepard. Joining in on the conversation? Good, I don't particularly feel like repeating myself. How are you adjusting to the _Nietzsche_?"

"I don't know." The response came with a blank tone. "I only woke up a few minutes ago."

"Actually, you've been awake for a few days. Most of your higher functions were simply locked to prevent you from accessing the ship so early." Miranda smiled beatifically at this. "You're a hard man to lock up though, it seems. You've been breaking down the security protocols around you ever since they were set up."

Shepard was quiet at this, merely waiting for an elaboration.

Tali, however, was not.

"Don't change the subject!" She interjected hotly, trying to steer the conversation back to the original topic. "What do you mean, you didn't research enough?"

Miranda shot the Quarian an annoyed glare before she continued.

"Shepard's implants were all connected by his nervous system, the largest of which housed a rudimentary VI to monitor the nano-machinery in his body. As I said, we did not _fully_ understand the technology." She explained slowly, her eyes riveted on Tali's faceplate, looking for any kind of reaction. "Shepard's skeleton became the base for an extended, synthetic nervous system. I imagine it all worked much like an extremely powerful greybox, allowing him to learn more in shorter amounts of time."

"You mentioned a VI." Shepard remarked, and Tali was certain that if he'd had a body he would be frowning thoughtfully.

"Yes, the VI. That's where things _really_ get weird. We still don't know how it happened." She sighed in annoyance, clearly still plagued by the relatively minor mystery. "You subsumed it."

A moment of silence passed as both Tali and Shepard tried to process this.

"I did _what_?" Shepard finally asked incredulously.

"You subsumed it." Miranda repeated, again sighing. "We can only assume it's somehow related to how the Reapers would meld biological and synthetic components into a single individual."

Again there was a pause.

"Didn't I stop a Cerberus operation that was trying to-"

"_Yes_." Miranda interrupted in irritation. "The information from Project Overlord would have been invaluable to us in this matter, but we don't get to choose what we rescue from a burning building. I was lucky to get what I could from Project Lazarus."

Shepard seemed to take offence at Miranda's tone, as he quickly answered with his own admonition.

"I'm sorry, did I ruin your evil mind-rape machine research? That's _terrible_." He retorted darkly. "I don't know how I'll ever sleep at night. Wait, no, _I don't have to do that anymore_. Thank you, shoddy research ethics, for changing my life."

"Are you finished?" Miranda snapped hotly, clearly taking offence at this.

"No. You still haven't explained how I went from cyborg to whatever it is I am now."

"We couldn't salvage your body, Shepard. I saw the reports from the Alliance. You were cooked, turned into a heap of charcoal. As damaged as you were from vacuum exposure, passing through the atmosphere of Alchera and the impact on the surface, a good deal of your tissue survived, so to speak. It was dead, but the nano-machinery could reverse the damage."

"So why couldn't you just do it again?" Shepard asked.

"Almost all of your tissue was _destroyed_, Shepard. Even your marrow didn't make it, protected as it was by your new skeleton. To make matters worse you've been producing more nano-machinery to cannibalize what remained of your body to keep yourself running. For better or worse you _are_ the machine now, Shepard."

"I'm not a machine." Shepard warned, his voice full of menace. "And you still haven't told m why I'm hooked up to the ship."

"Do you know how much resources it takes to store the whole of a single human mind, Shepard?" She asked, but ploughed on without waiting for an answer. "Because I certainly don't. We still don't know its inner workings even after hundreds of years of research."

"Yes, very mystical. I'm a ship. I don't know why." Shepard commented dryly.

"I was getting there!" Miranda snapped, exasperated at being interrupter _yet again_. It was like talking to a child. "From what we could gather from Tali and our contacts in the Alliance we guessed that most of you was stored in your synthetic nervous system, though the why of the matter is still a your consciousness without the aid your brain was obviously beyond its abilities, as it could only function for short periods of time before it suffered an input overload and forcefully purged it all and reset itself. For that reason, we decided it was best to give you plenty of room to grow, as it were." She sneered slightly as she finished. "_That's_ why you're a ship, Shepard. Now, are we _done_ here?"

"Tali? Do _you_ have anything to ask?"

Tali was startled at being addressed after such a long explanation, but she shook her head quickly.

"No, I think that about covers it." She said absently. There was a large amount to think about at the moment, and adding more to it would likely only make her worry more.

"Then I suppose we are. I'd appreciate it if you could send a copy of all the information that could be useful for me to know, though."

Miranda gave a calculating look, though by the way her face shifted she was obviously a bit put off by not being able to address the person she was speaking to.

"That may take some time."

"That's alright. Time is something I have lots of." Shepard said brightly, and hearing this made Tali smile. "Now, if you don't mind I'd like to get back to playing with myself." Tali could all but see the grin on his lips and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "For science."

Even Miranda coughed in surprise at this sudden outburst before she ended the feed and left Tali alone with her own crew, and Shepard.

**

* * *

**

Tali watched with mild amusement as Shepard 'played with himself' by moving the _Nietzsche_, causing a small panic at the helm as the pilots tried frantically to find out why the ship had altered course as well as restore control. Of course, that was only what she could see. She'd heard reports of systems turning on and off without warning, short blackouts in certain segments of the ship and fluctuations in their mass effect field causing everything from hallways with twice the amount of gravity to rooms full of levitating furniture. But most worryingly, the hardware that had been installed all along the ship's interior had begun to pulse a strange orange light.

And, of course, there was the unfortunate by-product that the ship's VIs seemed to be failing, one after another. After her enlightening talk with Miranda, Tali could venture a guess as to what was happening to them. She wondered if Shepard was even conscious of what he was doing, or if it just happened through some form of technological mystery.

"Okay, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this." Her omni-tool chirped brightly. "The drive core is still giving me trouble, but I'm getting better."

Despite his optimism Tali had reservations of her own. She could only imagine what he was going through at the moment, the kind of horror at what had happened to him. Only two of his old senses remained, sound and sight, and he couldn't possibly perceive the movements of the ship. But then again he'd likely gained a great many more: All the ship's sensors were at his disposal, the surveillance systems had become his eyes, and of course there was the drive core.

She knew that even before his first death Shepard had been a biotic of great strength, capable of wielding them on par with Asari commandoes. And when he'd come back it was as if overcoming death had only made him that much more dangerous. But at those times he'd only had a small amount of element zero in his system to manipulate. Now, and she quivered at the idea, he was connected to a _drive core_. She didn't know what kind of power he could draw from it, or how it altered his perception of the mass effect fields. She didn't even know if his abilities would exceed those of the VI that had previously managed the fields, but somehow she doubted it.

Tali suddenly felt the ground beneath her feet suddenly lurch forward, forcing her to stumble backwards before she could balance properly to compensate for the sudden movement.

"Hah! There we go!" Shepard exclaimed in triumph. "We are _moving_!"

At this a few of the pilots who were closer to her shot her a suspicious glance, though they soon turned back to their consoles.

"Tell them to stop trying to tell me where to go." Shepard asked. "There will be no backseat driving on _my_ ship, thank you."

Tali couldn't stop the titter from escaping her even if she'd wanted to. She'd heard Joker utter those words so many times before while bickering with EDI. The sound drew the attention of the crewman nearest to her, who frowned in consternation.

"Ma'am, do you know something about this?" He asked reproachfully, as if he already knew that she did.

Behind her mask Tali smiled, one of the few that she'd allowed herself since the end of the war.

"Yes." She answered, then turned to the room in general. "Piloting the ship will no longer be necessary. An AI-"

The main monitor at the front of the room lit up suddenly, suddenly showing what looked like a blurry image of a human face. At first she, along with the rest of the crew present, was confused s to what it was. But soon the indistinct features defined themselves, and the hazy visage changing to the face of John Shepard, the first human Spectre.

"I am _not_ artificial." The voice of Shepard corrected through the ship's PA speakers. "I was born the old fashioned way."

A roomful of eyes were suddenly riveted to the screen, wonder mixed with confusion. No doubt they were conflicted

"Why is he in control of the ship?" One of the pilots finally asked, snapping the silence with his question. "He never received any training for it!"

Shepard's face grinned at them all, which did little to comfort them.

"I'm a quick study."

"How can you manage the ship on your own?" Someone else questioned, full of suspicion.

"I'm a very talented individual." By now Shepard was obviously enjoying himself, as his grin had turned into a fully fledged smile. "Trust me, I've got this."

Nobody knew what to say to this, apparently, because silence greeted his boast. Everyone settled down into their seats, eventually returning to the various instruments used to monitor the ship. There were quiet, discontent whispers as they did, however.

In spite of this, Tali could only smile at the exchange. She glad that at least Shepard seemed to be the same person he had been, and that death hadn't taken anything from him. Figuratively speaking, in any case.

"So, where to first?" Shepard asked, looking pointedly at her. "Somewhere nice? Rannoch, maybe? I remember that you were quite eager to pay it a visit once we were done with the Reaper business."

Tali felt her stomach drop at this, realizing that Shepard didn't know what she'd done. And it would only be a matter of time before he realized something was wrong when she told him they couldn't enter Citadel space, or anywhere else they might be spotted by someone that might report them. And when he did, he'd want to know why.

"No." She said quickly, and suddenly wished she hadn't. He would also wonder at this. "I don't want to go there yet."

Her mind raced, trying to come up with some plausible excuse for why she wouldn't want to visit the world she had dreamed of for the better half of her life.

"Really?" Shepard asked incredulously. "I thought you'd be all for it."

Tali hesitated before answering, hoping for some last-minute inspiration.

"It's just," She started, and surprised herself with how easily a truth came to her lips when she was searching so very hard for a lie. "I wanted you to be there with me when I went."

Shepard was quiet for a moment, as if he didn't quite understand what she'd said. And then his face shifted slightly, blurring into an indiscernible mess of colours before reappearing.

"Oh."

It came out quietly, and with none of the previous mirth. Tali instantly felt ashamed for saying it, for making him feel bad for her own mistakes.

"Well, I guess we could look at it from orbit." Shepard offered. Tali wondered if she only imagined a twinge of hopefulness in his voice. She sighed sadly, deciding to run with it for a while at least.

"Maybe some other time."

"Oh."

"Awkward." One of the crewmen uttered, to the silent agreement of the others. Both Tali and Shepard shifted their gaze to take in the crew, now painfully aware once more that they had an audience.

And the crew, realizing that they now had the attention of a legendary Spectre, one that had made a name for himself by seeing to the destruction of a race of unfathomably powerful entities hell-bent on killing everything in the galaxy, suddenly realized that they had no idea where said Spectre was or how absolute his control of the ship was.

"Uhm, break time?" One suggested, a little too eagerly.

"That sounds like a _great_ idea." Shepard agreed.

As one, they all stood and left, leaving the Quarian alone with the monitor. And, even though she knew that Shepard was with her in all but the flesh, she couldn't help but feel incredibly lonely as she looked into his eyes.

For a long time they simply watched one another, both of them waiting for the other to speak their mind. Tali, her own thoughts a chaotic jumble of emotion, could only wonder at what was going through Shepard's head.

His face, or rather the image that he was using in place of one, was impassive.

"This isn't going to be easy, is it?" He finally asked, ending with a deep sigh.

Tali shook her head sadly.

"No, it isn't." She answered, though it broke her heart to do so. "But we'll have time to make it work."

"It's just... Would things have been better if-" Shepard hesitated for a moment, before he pressed on. "If there hadn't been anything left of me?"

"What?" Tali gasped at the question. "No! Of course not!"

"You say that now." Shepard grumbled darkly, his face blurring once again. "But how long will it be before you get tired of me, as I am now? You can't see me, you can't touch me, the only thing left to us is _talking_, Tali!"

"You're still here!" The Quarian protested loudly before she could stop herself. "And that's all that matters to me."

The distorted image of Shepard sharpened back into his face, concern on his face.

"You don't have to do this, Tali." He said softly. "You didn't know this would happen. You can leave. I don't want-"

"Don't even say it." Tali warned. "I'll never leave you again." A thought struck her, which made her grin despite herself. "You have a tendency to die when I do."

"I'm serious, Tali!" Shepard said angrily. "You don't deserve this! You should have someone who can make you happy! Not someone who can't even walk with you anymore!"

There was something in the words he said, and the way he said it that reminded her of a previous conversation, one very similar to this one.

It brought a smile to her lips, to know that their roles were reversed this time around.

"We've had this conversation before." She commented with a small amount of mirth.

A look of confusion passed over Shepard's face at this before recollection shined in his eyes, and a small smile of his own emerged.

"I guess we have." He agreed. "I suppose that means you'll be staying?"

"Of course." Tali replied. She gestured across the room, trying to indicate the ship at large. "We'll find a way to get by this."

The last trace of worry faded from his face at this, vanishing with a sigh.

"I think I can manage that." He laughed suddenly. "I just thought of something. I used to be a Spectre for the Council. Now I'm a ghost in the machine. I wonder if that's a step up or down?"

Tali allowed herself a titter at this.

"Maybe a step to the side?" She suggested.

"Hmmm, yes, I think that-" Shepard paused midsentence, his expression frozen in place. "Huh. That's odd."

"What?"

"I, I don't know. Something's happening with the... Something."

"_Very_ eloquent." Tali remarked dryly.

"Yes, very funny." Shepard replied. "Do you mind helping, or would you rather keep making fun of the horribly crippled person?"

Tali gave the monitor a reproachful look, suspecting that he could watch her face through her helmet's internal monitoring system. It would only give him a view of her eyes, but she suspected that if anybody could decipher those subtle movements it would be Shepard.

"You're going to have to tell me what your having trouble with, Shepard." She said

"I'm not having trouble with anything; I'm just not quite sure what the readings I'm picking up mean." Shepard refuted quickly. "I just _know_ something's wrong. It's like how you can almost tell someone's looking at you, right?"

Tali considered this for a moment before she allowed herself to hazard a guess.

"Maybe you're receiving information from the monitoring systems as stimuli?"

The image of Shepard simply shrugged, a distracted look on his face.

"It's as good a guess as any. Give me a second..." His voice trailed even as his face faded into a mess once more. It reformed itself quickly, however. "Yes, that seems to be it. I'm picking up a distortion at the Mass Relay. Feels kind of funny. Are we expecting company?"

"What?" Tali asked, all mirth gone once more. "No, we aren't-"

"Pardon me as I raise the alarm, then." There was a pause. "Uhm, I actually don't know how to do that." He said, embarrassed. "This might take a while."

Tali sighed, but allowed a small smirk to form on her lips.

"I'll take care of it." She said, bringing up her omni-tool. "You keep track of their movements for now."

"Got i- Oh, more info." He interrupted himself. "An Alliance patrol? Well, that's not too bad."

Tali cursed virulently at this, wondering how they'd been discovered. It took her only a moment to remember that they'd remained stationary for over a month preparing the ship for Shepard's revival. Even a month was an incredibly short time to find them, though. It was safe to assume that the Alliance had simply mobilized a bit faster than she'd first anticipated, or maybe there had been a tracking system installed in the ship that she'd missed. Regardless, they'd found her.

"How many are there and how long until they're in firing range?" She asked rapidly, even as she sounded the alarm.

"What? Tali, is something wr-"

"Shepard!"

"It looks like a minor scouting lance, a cruiser and four frigates." Shepard answered, almost disapprovingly. "I can't tell how long until they find us yet. I'm still learning. What's going on?"

Tali sighed, knowing that she couldn't avoid the matter forever, and it was better if Shepard knew from the onset why the Systems Alliance would be after them.

"I had to steal you from the Alliance, Shepard." She explained, looking at the doors that led to the other areas of the ship, a part of her hoping that someone would come running and cut her short. "The Alliance thinks I stole the ship for Cerberus, but I actually had help from Miranda."

Shepard was quiet for a moment, merely staring at her.

"I may have to have that explained to me afterwards." He said slowly. "I thought Hecate worked for the Alliance."

Tali merely shrugged.

"I don't know all of their reasons, I just wanted you back." She answered, knowing how weak an explanation it was.

A moment later the first of the bridge crewmen arrive, galvanized into action by the alarm and the knowledge that they were sitting ducks. Tali moved to the back of the room, shifting the image of Shepard from the front monitor to the one on her omni-tool. There was no need for the others to see them discussing this, especially not in the onset of what could be a heated battle.

He appeared as a transparent simulacrum of himself, a tiny body in place of a life-sized face. Tali smiled at the hologram, appreciating the irony of a man inhabiting one of the largest classes of ships appearing as such a diminutive figure.

The image of Shepard beamed her a smile. In the periphery of her vision Tali saw the crew take up their stations, each one manning a post that would allow them to coordinate the swarms of fighters that would soon be seething out of the hanger bays, but for now Tali only had her eyes on him.

"Well, I guess this is just one more thing to work through, then." He said comfortingly, and she could tell from the way the image shifted that he wanted to lay an arm around her. "Until then we- _They just fired at me!_"

The last words came out as an incredulous shout that ending with the image of Shepard vanishing into a swarm of colours. It happened so fast that she almost didn't register that his voice had taken on a metallic lilt.

A moment later she was rocked off her feet as the ship was struck by what felt like a small salvo of projectiles.

"They didn't even open communications!" The voice came from all around her, every console and speaker. "They can't do that! Somebody tell me how to shoot back!"

"We're a carrier, you idiot! We _can't_ fire!"

"_What_?" Shepard cried in disbelief. "The _hell_ I can't! I'm going to-"

His voice degenerated into the unintelligible noise that she'd come to associate with AIs and the Geth, something that stopped her cold. It lasted only a moment, but it was long enough to put everyone on edge.

"_There!_" Shepard suddenly called out triumphantly. "I can see them now!"

It would be some time later that Tali would admit to herself that she'd felt a moment of terrified shock as she _felt_ the mass effect field of the ship shift, the gravity she'd grown accustomed to suddenly twisting in several directions at once. She was lifted off her feet and thrown like a ragdoll before she'd latched onto a railing with a flailing hand. Even so, it was a rough ride. She could hear the terrified screams ring out across the bridge as they experienced something similar. She fought against the nausea that welled up in her as all direction became less than meaningless and gravity an arbitrary force that couldn't be bothered to stay put.

She didn't know what Shepard was doing, but she hoped he finished soon.

**

* * *

**

Captain Damien Trask, a young man fresh out of command school and looking to pick up as much experience as possible, hadn't been one of the many new recruits that had made a stand against the Reapers amongst the remnants of the Citadel. At the time he'd been thankful, but it was only in hindsight that he realized that he'd done nothing to solidify the fate of the galaxy. He'd mourned his friends who had fought, and felt like a coward for not fighting.

And so when the call to arms came to strike against Cerberus, he'd been quick to volunteer for the task. He hadn't known much about the situation, but he did know that the remains of John Shepard had been stolen by the infamous terrorist organization. Whether to reclaim what they believed to be their property or to sully the victory by denying the hero of the war his final resting place, Damien couldn't allow them to get away with it. Shepard was a simple of all that was good about humanity, all that they aspired to become.

He'd been surprised when they'd allowed him command of one of the frigates, the _SSV Pharsalus_, but he'd resolved himself to not let either the higher-ups or his crew down.

But there were things that young commanders should not be confronted with on their first attempts at leadership, and a carrier that could move several times its own length in a matter of seconds was _not_ one of them.

"How the hell are they moving so fast?" He demanded in horrified wonder. "That's just not possible!"

"The mass effect around them is off the chart, captain." His pilot answered, his hands moving across the holographic controls of the ship in a blur. "The power draw must be _insane_."

Damien allowed himself a brief, triumphant smile.

"Good. Their drive core is likely building up its charge quickly, then. They'll either have to power down or fry themselves."

In spite of this knowledge, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was horribly _wrong_. With the speed the _Nietzsche_ had attained escape would have been an easy matter. It could have made a quick getaway to the mass relay and gone through before they could pursue, and while they would have to discharge almost immediately upon arrival they'd still have bought themselves time to prepare. But they were instead _charging_ at them.

No fighters had been dispatched, which did nothing to soothe the uneasy feeling that was welling up inside him.

"Do we have any firing solutions yet?"

"Neg, sir. Light lag and its speed are playing hob with the targeting, huge though the damned thing is."

Damien frowned, folding his arms across his chest. He wasn't fond of his pilot's course language, but he supposed a small amount of eccentricity would have to be allowed.

"Well, fire when ready." He ordered, not quite sure what else he should do.

"Yes sir."

Like Tali did in the bridge of the _Nietzsche_, Damien Trask felt the sudden and violent shift in the mass effect fields before he was aware of what it was, and was flat on his back before he knew it. He cracked his skull on the floor as he did, stunning him where he lay.

He was dimly of his pilot screaming that their drive core was going berserk trying to compensate for the sudden fluctuations but somehow he just couldn't bring himself to care.

He barely even noticed as he was dragged across the floor towards a vast, seething sphere of black and blue. He merely watched with bemused wonder as the hull of the _Pharsalus_ was torn inwards with an agonized scream of steel.

The final thoughts of Damien Trask as he was sucked inside the whirling depths and crushed into oblivion was disappointment in himself for not doing better.

**

* * *

**

The fate of the frigates _Waterloo_, _Agincourt_ and the _Adrianople_ were much the same as the _Pharsalus_, ripped apart and crushed by a massive singularity. The crew of the _Nairobi_ could only wonder what had occurred, the emissions of their allies suddenly snuffed out with next to no warning. They were forced to confirm their fates visually, and saw the ruinous damage done to them.

They were all horribly distorted, their sleek forms twisted and torn into forms wholly alien. The only evidence that anything untoward had happened was the lingering traces of the monstrous mass effect fields that had destroyed them.

The captain of the ship took this all in, and only moments later ordered a retreat. The Alliance would need to hear of this new development.

**

* * *

**

It was later, and Tali was alone in her quarters.

Well, not _really_ alone. So long as she remained on the _Nietzsche_, she'd never really be by herself.

After the _Nairobi_ had quit the battle Shepard had been quick to enter the orbit of the closest planet, discharging the almost lethal charge that had been building up within the drive core.

The damage to the hull was nothing compared to the damage inside the ship wrecked by Shepard's manipulation of the drive core. The engineering level had suffered the greatest damages, many of those unfortunate to have been there being burned alive by the heat of the drive core and its charge, while some of the machinery there had been damaged by debris. Many of the hanger bays had to be sealed off when fighters had been catapulted violently into the walls or into each other, igniting raging infernos within the hull. The medical station of the ship was full with crewmen who had sustained broken bones or similar injuries when the sudden shifts in gravity had struck, with not a few killed outright.

Among those killed was Jacob Taylor. He'd been trying to get to the bridge when Shepard had lashed out, and been struck with a titanic shift in gravity that had left him with a shattered ribcage and collarbone and a pierced lung. He'd died a slow death, gasping for breath and trying to fight against the lethal pull of force, eventually dying of internal bleeding.

Tali had allowed herself to believe that she'd been a monster for murdering the former crew of the _Nietzsche_, despite her belief that there'd been no other option. Shepard had destroyed four frigates to save them, but many could only wonder if the price for doing so had been worth it. But at least she had managed to keep her allies safe. Her decision had saved the lives of those under her.

Shepard had no consolation. She wondered what was going through his mind, alien as it had become to her.

With Jacob's death the crew seemed to have little reason to stay aboard a ship that was as likely to kill them as the enemies that might be pursuing them, most leaving aboard the ships they'd arrived in. A few remained who either refused or could not leave due to their vessel having been destroyed or having been too badly injured.

The _Nietzsche_ was again a tomb, though this time nobody seemed brave enough to venture into the halls. For now, the only person working to maintain the ship was Shepard.

"Shepard?" Tali asked tentatively, as if afraid he wouldn't answer.

"Tali." The response was sullen, weary. "Is something wrong?"

She allowed herself a sigh. He was asking her what she wanted to ask him, and likely not even thinking about it.

"No, Shepard." She said comfortingly. "How are you?"

"I'm..." He struggled for words for a moment, the first time Tali had ever seen him do so since the death of Kaiden Alenko. "I'm coping." He finished lamely.

They were both silent for a long time.

"I didn't mean for that to happen." He elaborated slowly. "I just couldn't let them hurt us, and there was so little time, and-"

"I know." Tali interrupted, and she did. After all, she'd never intended to murder hundreds of humans, but she'd ended up doing so anyway. Sometimes intent simply wasn't enough.

Shepard made no response to this, and the suffocating silence that had reigned previously returned.

Tali was about to speak when her omni-tool chimed, signalling a message received. She frowned at the timing, wondering if ignoring it would be acceptable. But she knew that if anyone was trying to get a hold of her, then it was likely about something important.

Reluctantly, she brought up her hands and opened the message, willing it to be something positive.

It wasn't.

Miranda was cutting her losses, and would be sending transport soon to withdraw what remained of the crew. Apparently the Alliance had made the capture of the _Nietzsche_ a priority, the devastating power revealed by it garnering more than enough attention to force Miranda into severing what connections she had with Tali and Shepard. If she was found to complicit with the hijacking of the ship and then with the destruction of the frigates, Hecate would suffer a fate much like Cerberus before it.

But, Tali reflected, at least she'd accomplished what she'd originally set out to do. Shepard was back, altered as he was, and that was what mattered for now. They'd figure things out as they went, together.

"Shepard," She began with a sigh, knowing that the news she was about to share would only add to his fugue. "Miranda's pulling out. What's left of the crew will be gone by tomorrow."

"I know." He answered. "I got the message too."

Tali bristled at this, wondering how Miranda could have been so cold as to do such a thing. She had to know how the effects of his power would affect him, and she might as well have said that she didn't believe he had the ability to learn how to wield that power properly without killing anybody.

She decided that, for now, they'd have to focus on something else.

"We'll have to leave this sector soon." She said.

Shepard didn't answer at first, and for a moment Tali was afraid that maybe he wasn't listening to her. But then, her omni-tool flashed into life, revealing the tiny simulacra of Shepard once more, miniature arms folded across his chest and a determined scowl on his face.

"Yes, and it would probably be best that we stick to places that either the Reapers hit, or where the Alliance can't easily go."

Tali nodded at this, a small smile working its way onto his lips as she watched the small man begin pacing back and forth.

"For now, we'll head deeper into the Terminus Systems, avoiding the remnants of the Batarian Hegemony, and from there..."

He trailed off with what might be called a thoughtful expression on his face. Tali quirked her head to the side, wondering what he was thinking of. Eventually the tiny Shepard looked straight up at her, almost as if he could see her through the hologram's eyes.

"The Perseus Veil." He said resolutely.

Tali heard the gasp before she could stop herself. The peace between the Geth and her people had been an uneasy one, forged mostly through the sheer force of Shepard's personality and necessity for standing against the Reapers. And, while she had firsthand experience of working with them, there was still the vestiges of distrust and hatred installed within her. They were irrational, she knew, but such things were rarely dictated by sense.

But she could see why he would suggest it. Many were like her, refusing to see the Geth as they were and instead seeing the vicious machines that had assaulted the Citadel so long ago. Most would be loathe to intrude on their space, fearing what retribution would be waiting for them there.

Nobody would go looking for them there. And even if they did, what lay beyond the Veil was almost completely unknown.

She closed her eyes as she nodded her assent.

"Yes, that's a good idea."

"I thought so too." Shepard remarked, and again looked thoughtful. "I'll try to get a hold of Legion. I'm pretty sure they'll help us out."

**

* * *

**

**AN:** Lair of the Shadow Broker left me with spheres of an azure hue for Mass Effect 3. Not even Gollum wants his ring as much as I want ME3 right now. That said, I'm glad there are no volcanoes in the neighbourhood. Unless I have to go on a world-spanning quest to-

Actually, never mind. I tried too hard with that one.

I wonder if I should start calling Miranda "Captain Exposition" instead. It seems to be the role I keep throwing her into, the poor girl. I was kind of proud of the explanation for why Shepard has almost twice as many abilities as anybody else and the capacity to learn _anybody's_ special ability in ME2. And _yes_, I _do_ know that I know nothing about machines (let alone the theoretic and esoteric sciences of bio- and nano-machinery.) and am pulling facts wholly out of my bottom. I do that, more often than usual with this story.

As to Jacob's fate, well... I never really cared for him. He's just so 'meh'. I figured I might as well use his death for added drama.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: **Avast! I missed the Talk like a Pirate Day by a league, but by the devil's dog I'll not be swayed from gabblin' like one on account o' that! I hope that all ye lubbers out there hadn't gotten used to the quicker updates, 'cause if ye had, then ye'd have been mightily disappointed in me! I was bogged down by a tempest o' Writer's Block and a bit o' scurvy (nay, not really scurvy, but the flu. But that's not a nautical ailment!) but I managed to sail through them troubled waters eventually!

Ye ken them 12 chapters I mentioned afore? Aye, they've become 13! A fortuitous number, and one I hope to keep!

**1: I don't own any of the Bioware properties**, but one day I'll find out where those beauties be buried and make them mine! **I also be receivin' no swag for this!**

**2: Reviewers are all kinds of amazin'! **That be all, ye scurvy dogs!

3: I apologize that the word 'Phantasmagoria' be used! 'Tis a bastard of a word and no two ways about it!

Batten down the hatches, mates! A storm be a-brewin' up ahead!

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter VI: The Gates of Ivory and Horn**

**

* * *

**

The Geth didn't name their ships like organics seemed to be so fond of doing. It wasn't needed, after all. There was no need for identification, all the inhabitants were Geth. All that need be done was begin the exchange of data, which would enlighten all as to what was aboard the ship, what had been learned and what needed to be done. 'Crewmen' could leave or arrive whenever it was deemed necessary, as it wasn't as if the ships were ever isolated in Geth Space. Like Citadel Space, the Perseus Veil had had a vast network of communication buoys set up, allowing free flow of information from each vessel.

It was this network that Shepard had accessed in order to speak to Legion, or rather a lesser aspect of the greater whole of the Geth that was comprised of a-

Shepard had long since given up trying to explain to Tali what the Geth had tried to tell him. And the Geth, for their part, had eventually given up trying to explain to him how wrong he was in assuming there was an individual amongst them and simply uploaded themselves back into the 'Legion' platform before they lost what respect they had for the man. It was not, however, that much of a sacrifice. The 'Legion' platform was one of the most preferred for reasons they couldn't quite explain.

After a conversation that Tali was not privy to as Legion and Shepard had briefly 'interfaced' (which Tali could only take to mean as 'machine talk'), Shepard had reported that he knew where to go. And thus had begun a trip into the Perseus Veil, passing into a place where organics still feared to go.

Tali couldn't stop herself from staring out of the many viewing stations of the Nietzsche, hoping to catch sight of something left of the ancient Quarians. She knew the chances of doing so were abysmal, but the possibility was there. Her time on Haestrom had become one of her most fond memories. To walk on the ground that her ancestors once had, to see what they had created in a time when all was right for their people, it was a time she would treasure for all time in spite of what the sacrifice had been in lives. She would not give up hope that she would be able to have such an experience again.

The Nietzsche, in spite of being populated by only a single individual, seemed more alive to her now than it ever had even with a crew. Shepard was never gone from her side long, and even when he was all she had to do was speak, and he was back. And when she wanted solitude, a rare occurrence that had happened only once so far, he was gone. Shepard spent every hour of the day discovering more about himself. After weeks of travel, passing through empty systems or the debris of battles fought against a seemingly insurmountable enemy even Tali was prepared to admit that his control of the ship was impressive. With each passing day it grew, to the extent that she no longer had to help him out with seemingly minor tasks, such as monitoring the various detection systems, or oversee the workings of the reactor or drive core.

And he still managed to chatter idly with her for as long as she wished. She silently marvelled at his resilience and his ability to adapt. She remembered Liara once remarking that he had a remarkably strong will: It was only now that Tali realized how right the Asari had been.

"So, what is it exactly you would do on the fleet to pass time?"

The question came so suddenly that it startled the Quarian away from gazing out into the void. For a moment she stuttered uselessly before she reigned herself in to answer.

"Well, we usually don't have a whole lot of free time." She admitted, a little embarrassed for her own people. "But music and dance are pretty important to us."

There was no answer for a moment, but then her omni-tool lit up.

"Music I can arrange." Shepard said through its speaker, and soon the soft chords of a string instrument was echoing out into the empty room. "Dancing, however, is something you'll have to manage on your own."

She smiled at his effort to capture her attention, appreciating the effort more than what was offered. Though, she suspected that there was simply a part of Shepard that wished to see her trying to dance. That brought with it a small titter: She wondered how many people in the galaxy could claim, with a straight face, that their ship was trying to hit on them.

"Maybe some other time." She said with a small titter. "There are other things we do to pass the time, though."

"I can imagine a few things." Was his reply, and there was a note in his voice that conjured images in her mind of just what kind of things he had in mind.

Even though she knew it was only talk, Tali blushed at such open flirting. It was nice to know that that hadn't changed.

"Shepard!" She giggled, amazed that she was still capable of such a thing.

"Hey, a man can dream, can't he?" The laugh, coming as it did from her omni-tool, was only as natural as its limited means allowed. Still, it was good that he was still capable of it after so long.

Not for the first time she wished that she could wrap her hands around his, or feel his warmth against her. Or even just to reach out and touch him. But, she was getting used to the forced distance between them.

She didn't allow herself to dwell on this, instead focussing on the conversation.

"Maybe." She said lightly, turning fully away from the porthole. "But you wanted to know what we do with our free time?"

The music stopped, and a facsimile image of Shepard's face appeared from her omni-tool in a blaze of light.

"I asked, didn't I?" The face was clearly amused.

"Well," She began, thinking back to when she was a child with her aunt and mother. "We sometimes share stories."

Technically, it was true. Tali was certain that much of the gossip that passed between the two elder women, often accompanied laughter, were mostly works of fiction. And, of course, her mother had told her stories as a child. But among adults? Not so much.

"Really?" Shepard asked, the disbelief obvious in his voice. "Stories? Not holovids, or even films?"

"Well, we sometimes have public showings of holovids." She conceded, wishing she'd said that instead. "But only on the larger ships."

"Well, I don't know many stories." Shepard admitted happily. "But I do have access to the ship's rec-room archives. There's all kinds of things we could watch, if you want."

And with those fateful words she found herself wasting hours of her day in the bridge of the Nietzsche, using it as a kind of makeshift theatre hall. Shepard insisted that she be inundated with Human media ranging from the ancient to the new. She became somewhat more knowledgeable about human history at the same time, as many of the old vids seemed to focus on what was happening at the time. The singularities of those films were the most interesting to watch, though some of the more hilariously wrong views about a galactic society or aliens were even more so. Playing the peanut gallery with Shepard was surprisingly entertaining, and after only a few tentative attempts they'd both settled into a steady exchange of banter and laughter.

Tali would be the first to admit that she'd never have suspected that there would be such a vast library on board a warship, but it made sense when she thought about it. A crew of bored, stressed and quite possibly frightened people was hardly the ideal, so providing entertainment of all kinds would probably be a must. She wondered why she never saw such things on either incarnation of the Normandy, but she decided that it was likely because the ship wasn't large enough to make it worth the effort. Even so, Tali could recall a few occasions of crew members circulating various vids or games amongst themselves.

She refocused on the vid they were watching. Thinking back on the Normandy only made her sad, and she knew that there had already been more than enough sadness in her life. Several lifetimes, in fact. For now, she would enjoy her time with the savior of the galaxy.

It was at that moment that she found herself stifling a yawn, suddenly aware of how many hours they'd spent immersed in the fictional lives of various heroes, lovers or other characters. The film paused at the sound.

"I suppose we have been at this for quite a while." Shepard commented. "Feeling tired?"

Tali nodded in affirmation to the question, and rose from her seat and stretched, savouring the feeling that came with the movement.

"Would you mind if we picked back up tomorrow?" She asked.

The movie instantly morphed into Shepard's face, wearing a small smile.

"Of course not." The image faded into blackness, leaving her alone.

Tali was too sleepy to wonder at the abrupt way in which Shepard had left her. She was more concerned with how she hadn't noticed how tired she was until now, but after a moment's consideration decided that she'd merely been enjoying herself too much to notice.

She turned to leave the bridge, intent on sleep.

And almost walked straight into a Geth.

It appeared to be working at the intricate web that had recently been installed which Tali understood to be what made up the majority of Shepard's mind.

Her hand flashed down to the small of her back more through reflex than conscious thought, and it was only when her grasping fingers met nothing that she remembered that she was unarmed. Undeterred, she drew herself up to look more intimidating than she currently felt.

"What are you doing?" She bellowed, and hastily began shooing the machine away. "Get away from that!"

The Geth, apparently surprised by her sudden appearance and her berating, hastily obliged. It's garbled, unintelligible voice tried in vain to calm her down even as its hands came up in a vaguely placating manner.

"Tali!" Shepard's voice cut in from her omni-tool. "It's ok!"

The Quarian shot an incredulous look at her wrist, and felt stupid for doing so.

"What do you mean?" She demanded angrily, leveling her gaze back onto the Geth who was even now edging away cautiously.

"They docked with us a few hours ago, and they've been repairing me." Shepard explained rapidly in an effort to diffuse the situation. "You know, from when you stole the ship? And when we were attacked?"

Tali scowled at this, though she wasn't quite aware of why she did. Most likely it was to be proven to be in the wrong of the matter.

Officially, the hostility between the Geth and the Quarians had ended. Hatred, however, is rarely dictated by rationality, and three hundred years was a long time for it to build up. The war between them was over, but peace was still just beyond grasp. Even Tali, who had more reason than most Quarians to trust their creations, was not beyond this.

"But why was it messing with you?"

"Ah." At this Shepard was clearly embarrassed. "They offered to improve on me a bit."

Tali narrowed her eyes at this, even if she wasn't angry anymore. Well, at least not at the Geth. Shepard had tried to hide this from her, though she wasn't quite sure why.

Instead of asking more about she simply sighed in annoyance.

"Why didn't you tell me they were here?" She asked simply.

This prompted Shepard to appear from her omni-tool in his miniature form. He wore the trappings of war comically, each weapon entirely too large for his tiny hands. Or even his body, as what she guessed was supposed to be a grenade launcher actually reached down to the ground from his back.

"You know I hate to say this, Tali." The small image said with great reluctance. "But you aren't exactly the most understanding when it comes to the Geth."

"Shepard!" Tali protested, even if she knew it was true. She wasn't exactly proud of the fact, but nor did she like to be reminded of it. They were geth, after all.

"I'm sorry, but I didn't want to worry you."

"It's a bit late for that!" She snapped before she could stop herself.

The tiny image of Shepard sagged visibly with a sigh.

"I'm going to cut my losses on this one." He said in defeat. "Just don't fry any of their brains, please. They're trying to help."

The Geth, who up until that point had been trying to surreptitiously edge away both from their argument and could amount to an agonizing death at the hands of a startled Quarian. The question of whether or not a sentient machine actually could feel pain was not one that it was eager to have answered.

Tali glared at it for a moment before she realized just how fruitless it was. The gesture was wasted on a creature that was incapable of feeling fear, and it wasn't as if she was angry at it. Or Shepard, for that matter.

She supposed she was angry for being reminded of what Shepard had become. It was easy for her to simply focus on his voice or holographic voice and pretend that he wasn't really simply a part of the ship. She didn't like to have to remember that the only thing left of him, if anything, was a pile of bones sealed inside a machine of such esoteric workings that even the people who built it couldn't quite explain how it worked.

She didn't like to know that Shepard wasn't the same anymore. She preferred to pretend otherwise.

Tali turned away from the machine with a long sigh, deciding that there was nothing else for it but to sleep and hope the new day brought with it something better than all the others had so far. And the Geth, upon seeing that she had disregarded it as a threat, returned to its work. But not without a quick furtive glance at her retreating back, as if to make sure she was not simply trying to lull it into a false sense of security.

However, as she was about to leave it, it spoke once more, this time in a voice she remembered.

"Creator Tali'Zorah, we would speak with you for a moment."

Tali stopped at the words, surprised more at the suddenness of it than the speaker itself. Or speakers, rather.

Unlike Shepard, Tali was intimately acquainted with how the Geth functioned. Likewise, there was still a lingering distrust in her that allowed her to believe them capable of any duplicity, even if they were not known to employ such tactics. It was, just as with her hatred of them, an irrational distrust. But she recognized it as such, which was more than the average Quarian likely could.

"Legion." She answered, and turned back. "Was there a reason you did this?"

She was referring to why they had let her argue with Shepard, when it could easily have stopped it.

"We did not wish for Shepard Commander to overhear our conversation." It explained in that dead voice that she had grown familiar with. "We predicted your reaction upon seeing our work, and deducted Shepard's reaction to it. An altercation between you was calculated as 87.12 percent certain."

Tali was taken aback at the cold clinical of it once more, reminded once more of just how easily they were able to distance themselves from most situations. But more worrying was that it had devised a way to make Shepard, who was connected to almost every single electronic device in the ship and could thus be assumed to be aware of everything that happened in it, not listen. It implied a cunning and willingness to employ it that she hadn't seen so far.

Maybe the Geth had learned something from their contact with organics.

"What don't you wish Shepard to hear?" She asked.

"We wanted to warn you of the dangers Shepard Commander presents." It answered simply, it's single optic lens adjusting slightly as if to see her better. "He is as a rogue AI."

Tali bristled at this, and her stance shifted subtly to convey this.

"He isn't an AI!" She said with vehemence.

"We know this." Legion agreed. "Shepard Commander is as alien to us as he is to you. This is the danger."

"He's still the same, though." Tali insisted. "He hasn't changed."

"Not yet." Legion countered, and the edged answer took Tali aback.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, her voice turning dark and hostile. "What have you done to him?"

The faceplates of the machine flared outwards in what Tali had come to recognize as one of the Geth signs of agitation, or anger.

"We have done nothing." It stated, and the deadpan tones made Tali wonder what exactly was going on inside its processors. It was perfectly able to be offended, but not of expressing it non-verbally. "He was not made for such an existence, and will soon change to adjust."

"Explain." The demand

Again the machine flared, very briefly.

"Shepard Commander is no longer bound by his hardware." It began, and for a moment Tali could swear she could hear a note of strained patience. "Like Geth, he is able to process at the speed of light. Time, for him, is no longer a constant. Observation of his runtimes show that they have not yet stabilized. This is only one of our concerns."

"What are the others?" Tali asked, and almost kicked herself for not stopping her.

"Lack of stimuli, operating system incapability and mental overexertion are among our primary concerns."

Tali raised her eyebrows at this.

"Operating system incapability?" She asked, an incredulous laugh following the question.

Legion shrugged, or performed the movements what amounted to something very similar for the humanoid robot.

"Shepard Commander was not built for his current hardware." It clarified.

"He wasn't built at all!" Tali retorted, ignoring that it was referring to his current form as mere 'hardware'. She wasn't sure if the ship could be called his body, but it certainly wasn't far from the truth.

"That is what we were referring to."

Tali decided to drop that line of conversation as she wasn't quite sure she liked where it was headed. Maybe it was her fatigue and the recent fight with Shepard, but at the moment she didn't want to be bothered by anyone. The Geth least of all.

"So what do you suggest?" She asked impatiently, folding her arms in doing so.

Legion took her stance in, and looked to be considering what it might mean before answering.

"The Geth suggest that you integrate with Shepard Commander to provide stability." It said eventually.

There was a long silence between them as Tali attempted to divine what exactly Legion might be referring to when it said 'integrate'. Somehow, in her mind, an otherwise innocent word had suddenly been robbed of its dignity and turned dirty as she tried to work this out. Eventually she gave up.

"What do you mean, 'integrate'?"

"Shepard Commander is incapable of physical interaction, but the Geth have devised a method for you to interact with him." It replied.

Tali let out a snort of disbelief at this.

"Just like that?" She asked with a bit of scorn. "You just _happened_ to have that kind of tech just lying around?"

"We have been developing it since our initial contact with Shepard Commander." Legion admitted. "But the technology was already readily available. Commercially developed simulstim hardware schematics as well as documented neurostim studies provided the foundation of our research. A functioning mind/machine interface was not difficult to develop from these sources. We believe we have developed the device to be optimally compatible with the Creators."

Despite herself, Tali was impressed. It couldn't have been longer than a week or two, but for the Geth to have to have come so far in such a short amount of time indicated a startling rate of progress. Which really should not have surprised her, considering all that she had witnessed them accomplish. Harvesting the ruins of the Citadel to construct their massive sentient Warp Projectors, the weapons that had played a large role in fighting the Reapers had been a feat of both engineering and technical ability, as most of the more valuable resources had already been scavenged by small-scale salvage operations that had rushed to seize upon such an opportunity.

As if sensing what was going through her mind the Geth spoke up once more, its plates lifting slightly and easing into a slightly embarrassed posture.

"The Geth have devoted most of our runtimes to this endeavor." It stated. "We regret that our efforts have not borne fruit until now."

Tali quirked her head to the side, studying the Geth with renewed interest. She knew from experience that it was almost pointless trying to read the expression of the Geth, as they only revealed what they were willing to show. There were no subtleties to their being, instead

Legion was different, though. She was willing believe that while there wasn't an individual amongst the Geth, there were many facets. And Legion, or rather the programs that comprised it, seemed to be capable of at least complexity if not subtlety. It showed in the way it tried to mimic its organic counterparts.

And right now it seemed to be showing a small amount of hesitance.

"So where is this machine?" She asked slowly, studying the Geth for any telling reactions.

Legion shifted again, almost an ashamed shuffling of feet. Never once did the small light waver from her face, however, and after a few moments of waiting it seemed to reach a decision. Or consensus, whatever they called it.

A segment of its chest slid away, revealing a small compartment within. Tali watched in mild fascination as Legion calmly shoved a hand inside it and seemed to rummage through its own innards until a small, gleaming device emerged. She studied it for a moment as Legion presented the thing for her to take, trying to see how she would use it.

It was a smallish thing that would easily fit inside her hand, its length lined with a familiar array of glowing orangish-red bands tapering towards a long, gently spiraled point. She recognized a small capsule of nano-machinery gel in the middle of the thing, an innocuous translucent blue substance sealed inside a canister of reinforced glass. Beyond these features the thing was rather plain, with little to distinguish it from a simple omni-tool modification.

After a moment of trying to find where it would fit into her omni-tool or some other interface, she suddenly realized just _why_ there was a vicious point at the end of it, and then replayed the earlier conversation back in her mind and paired it with the slightly uncomfortable behavior. It suddenly made sense in context, now.

She shot the machine a glare which she was sure that it would not see behind her faceplate.

"You _can't_ be serious." She stated simply.

Legion's face flared greatly at this, its agitation by now apparent.

"The Mind/Machine Interface requires direct connection to your central nervous sys-"

"I _know_ that!" She interrupted angrily, pushing the proffered hand away. "But I am _not_ letting that bore through my skull! Why do I-"

"Creator Tali'Zorah!" The Geth said, its voice suddenly louder than she ever remembered it becoming. She was taken aback at it, surprised that it would resort to _shouting_ at her in order to make her listen. Dumbly, she waited for it to continue.

"The Geth would not suggest this option without due consideration." It elaborated at a normal volume. "We are greatly concerned over the status of Shepard Commander. We have voiced similar concerns for the AI EDI, but these concerns went unheeded. Shepard Commander's initial contact with the Geth was greatly disturbing. We have only recently come to consensus regarding our actions."

Tali gaped openly at the robot, surprised at what it revealed. She was surprised that the Geth were capable of fear, though she was even more so that they could be motivated by it.

"What was it that caused the Geth to become 'concerned'?" She asked carefully, unsure if using the word 'fear' would elicit a negative response from the machine.

"Many Geth were destroyed by Shepard Commander's first contact." Legion answered, letting its plates fold back down. "Shepard Commander was not even aware of their demise. We have had to insulate ourselves extensively against him to prevent him from doing so again."

Tali opened her mouth to speak, but found the words would not come.

Shepard was killing the Geth merely by _talking_ to them? And hadn't even been aware of what he was doing? She could only imagine the kind of shockwaves that sort of thing might have sent through the Geth.

But, she felt she had become familiar with their particular brand of logic, and with that she was confident in her guess of what they intended.

"So," She started, taking a deep breath. "You want me to make sure Shepard stops trying to contact you, and then send us on our way?"

Legion's face flared once more, as if surprised at her bluntness.

"Yes." It replied shortly. Tali stared at the machine, before it relented and added on to its abrupt answer. "We will also provide you with supplies as necessary, and hide your presence so long as you remain in Geth Space."

Tali snorted at this, though worry dominated her mind.

How bad were things _really_, if the Geth were afraid of what he was? Tali could only get the superficial of what Shepard was going through, what he wanted her to hear. What was _really_ happening aboard the _Nietzsche_?

She looked back down at the small implant in Legion's hand.

Reluctantly she reached out and took it.

"How are we going to do this?"

* * *

Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy rubbed absently at the base of her skull, not for the first time glad that her helmet prevented her from actually touching it.

She'd had implants before, but never one on this scale. They had been relatively non-invasive subdermals or mostly external things that were a part of her suit and only connected to her body through IVs. But the Geth implant was something else completely, and it worried her a bit.

Even through the powerful anesthetic Legion had provided, getting the implant had been agonizing for Tali. The makeshift clean room that the Geth had created had thankfully prevented her from suffering from any kind of infection, but the effects of having a small metal spike drilled forcibly through her skull was still a memory she wished she could do without. The pitiless faces of Geth working despite her screams to stop, seeing the small droplets of blood that had been spattered on the floor as she gasped breathlessly when they were done and dull throbbing agony throughout her entire being were also memories she wished could be purged from her mind, but they were still at the forefront of her mind even now, days after the procedure.

She was able to weather them out, able to force herself to forget for a time until she was reminded. She could push them to the back of her mind. But the worst was the secrecy. Because as miserable as she'd been afterwards, not being able to speak about it at all to the man she loved had been even worse.

She'd grown used to the dull ache that ran up and down her spine whenever she moved her head too suddenly, and was hardly bothered at all by the pressure at the back of her head when she laid down to sleep. The bouts of sudden vertigo or fatigue had likewise faded, until now she was left only with the memories of what had happened. The terrible, stupid things she had let the Geth do to her because of their own fears.

Shepard was worth it, though. She had to keep him balanced, had to keep him as he was. If he became warped, changed from the kind and wonderful man he was because of her...

She couldn't bear the thought. For the first time she wondered if her selfishness had truly been justified, or if she should have just vanished from history in her grief. How many lives had been destroyed by her actions? How many people had she put in the same situation she had been in just so that Shepard could have a parody of life? She couldn't let their sacrifice be in vain.

The last thought had come back to her more often than she'd have liked as she recovered from her implant.

But today she'd been able to access her omni-tool without using her hands, navigating its functions without even looking at the thing. It had been disconcerting, at first, to have the information she was accessing suddenly _appear_ in her mind, as if simply remembering something she'd forgotten rather than learning something new. But that sensation had soon worn off as she found herself trying to learn more of what she could do with the implant, silently marveling at what it was capable of. If only her own people had developed something like this! She'd only stopped herself from sending the schematics of the device to the Migrant Fleet when she realized that doing so would reveal where she and Shepard were hiding.

And _that_ reminded her of what she had originally been hoping to accomplish with the implant. Tentatively, she allowed herself to sever the connection between herself and the omni-tool. A small pit formed in her belly as she did, fearing what might happen if the Geth had made a critical error in their research.

Fearing what might happen when she made the connection, Tali sat herself down on her bed and propped herself up against the wall. If she lost control of her motor functions while in contact with Shepard, at least she wouldn't risk hurting herself.

"Shepard?" She asked, trying not to let her nervousness show.

Her omni-tool lit back up as Shepard effortlessly accessed it for his use, appearing before her as the tiny man she'd begun to recognize.

"You rang?" He asked, entirely unaware of what she had planned next.

Tali hesitated only for a moment before she accessed her omni-tool once more, this time finding the connection to Shepard and reconnecting it to her implant.

"Tali?" Shepard asked, confusion in his voice. "What are you-"

The world faded away for the Quarian as the connection was made, the world swirling into darkness as even the soft sounds of her own suit, sounds she'd never even been aware of before, vanished.

She was left in a vast blackness, a featureless void that unsettled her greatly. She looked down, expecting to see her feet, and was mildly surprised that there was none. Panic loomed at the edge of her mind at this but she quickly reined it in.

"Shepard?" Strangely, she still had a voice in this place in spite of the fact that she seemed to have no form. It rang out into the bleakness, echoing back at her from a thousand directions.

"Tali?" Shepard's voice answered her, coming from every direction at once. "What are you doing he- Wait, this is wrong. One second."

The world contorted into a phantasmagoric memory of what she knew instinctively to be the _Nietzsche_, her surroundings alight with a labyrinthine display of amber dancing lights or distant stars seen through insubstantial walls. She stood breathless for a moment, mesmerized at the hypnotic beauty of it all, her mouth working into a smile. Unable to stop herself she reached out to touch a band of light as it snaked its way past her, and reveled in the sensation that passed through her as it did, knowledge passing into her being. Somewhere in the ship a monitor lit up as she accessed it, reading through its contents with nothing more than an errant thought.

And her hand! She'd half expected to be just as formless as she had been before, but found that she was a shimmering ghost here, pale lilac flares of light coursing across a vaguely translucent body. With a laugh she found herself inspecting the rest of her form, delighting in her incandescent manifestation. Somewhat distressingly she found that her clothes had not made the transition, but at the moment there were more pressing issues.

"Shepard?" She asked again, allowing her voice to carry some of the delight she was feeling.

Her surrounding distorted at the sound of her voice, the walls warping themselves distressingly for a moment before they surged into a single point in front of her, converging into a large golden oval that became impossibly bright at its center. Tali watched in wonder as a hand reached out from it, hesitantly at first, as if trying to feel its way through lightless cavern , but growing in confidence as more of came from its gleaming depths. An arm followed, and then a shoulder, and so on until Tali was standing in front of radiant figure of a man, a kind of silhouette that made of light instead of shadows.

Tali tried to squint her eyes against the light to see some kind of distinguishing detail but was disappointed.

"Tali." The figure spoke, and the light diminished until she was looking at an ethereal image of Shepard. A deep confusion was plain upon his features. "How are you _here_?"

The Quarian didn't answer at first, and instead launched herself at the softly gleaming figure in front of her in a hug, feeling supremely happy when she _felt_ his arms wrap themselves around her as they fell to the ground, passing through it as if it wasn't really there. She savored the look of happy surprise on Shepard's face as she did, thinking that it was likely much the same as the one she must be wearing herself.

Their fall slowed to a stop eventually, though the two hardly noticed as they took in the feeling of the other, each caress or contact sending a trail of tiny lights coursing through their forms.

Tali found herself laughing in happiness, overjoyed that they were back together. As wondrous as the ship was to her in this state Shepard's presence was what made it all worth it. The worries and melancholy of the last few months was gone in that moment.

"Tali?" Shepard asked once again, warmer this time.

"Later." She said, and placed a kiss on the gleaming man's lips and smiled as face lit up, both physically at the contact and emotionally. "Let's just savor this right now."

* * *

**AN:** Yar! I be havin' a pirate-y accent!

Sorry. I just couldn't resist.

Please do not point and sneer at my thinly veiled dues ex machina. It was the best I could do at the time. Removing it will be one of my priorities if I ever rework this story.

And yes, I do know things are looking up. You know what they say about things that go up, though, right?


	7. Chapter 7

**AN:** I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter. Because I'm going to step all over that. But before _that_:

**1****:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got.** Though I'd like to meet the people who did and gape at them in awe until they get tired of me. **I'm also not receiving any pay for this.**

**2:Reviewers are hugely appreciated.** Just as (I hope) you guys look forward to seeing what I put up, so do I look forward to see what you have to say about it. So... yeah.

3: I apologize for the use of the word mesa. Because I'm so very bored with fjords. Heh, I rhymed.

Also, I've officially broken past the 40k words barrier! (Which I failed to attain last chapter due to a whopping 14 words. _14. Freaking. Words_. I should have just tacked on a shout out at the end of the chapter and had done with it.) HOORAY!

You remember that scene I talked about a while back? _It's here!_ (Yes, I suck at planning. We'll just put that on the list with all my other faults. )

Lastly, the story has officially been brought up to 'M'. Reasons for doing so will be explained at the end of the chapter, though by then you'll likely know why. Until then, just think of it as 'M' for MONSTROUSLY AWESOME!

Right then, let it _rain_!

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter VII: The Butterfly Dreams**

**

* * *

**

The _Nietzsche_, drifting aimlessly between solar systems in the Kaas'Den cluster, looked like more than an errant wreck of a ship than one of the most sought-after vessels in the galaxy. And even once inside, one might be forgiven for persisting in that belief. The many empty halls, devoid of atmosphere or gravity but pulsing with eerie orange light seemed to have been taken straight out of an old ghost story to frighten children.

And, when seeing the ship's sole organic inhabitant lying prone for hours on end, stirring only long enough to eat or stretch, they'd be forgiven for thinking she was dead. Or, at the very least, that something was very wrong with her. In a way, they would be right. The woman was quite literally dreaming of a better world, leaving behind the old until dragged, unwilling, back to reality.

It was hard for Tali to pull herself away from Shepard, to force herself away from him and into a world where he was only a voice. While she was with him, she could feel his touch without risk of illness, could do all the things she wished she could in reality without the slightest fear of what might happen. A thousand other errant wishes of a young woman forever barred from what others took for granted, suddenly granted all at once.

They'd already been to Virmire, delighting in the cool wetness of the water as she waded through the shallows or the way small fish would cautiously begin to swim along her, unfamiliar with a creature like her. The feel of soft sand falling through her fingers Or she would savour the feel of the warm sun on her back as they lay on the sandy beach and using Shepard's arm as a pillow. She could spend days there, careless of what she had left behind.

Or they would visit the memory of the Citadel, which always provided a pleasant distraction whenever they wanted to forget that they were alone and hear the sounds of a vast, thriving metropolis and, for the first time in her life, not have to listen to them through her suits aural receptors. To be able to dance with Shepard at Flux for the first time had been wonderful, though she was certain that Shepard had taken some time to learn how to dance before they'd started, and he'd maybe been taking a few liberties with the personification of the spectators as she was certain that they didn't often form a ring and start cheering. Though it had been fun, and Shepard seemed to be pleased from the way she seemed to blush over the attention.

They'd even, in a moment of weakness and whimsy for the two of them, played parts in a heavily modified version of the holovid _Fleet and Flotilla_, an embarrassingly awkward but hilarious affair that had nevertheless been a wonderful experience. Seeing Shepard try to act like a Turian was funny all on its own, but Tali was sure that her own skills as a thespian, or lack thereof, provided just as much mirth for her partner as he did for her. The way she would occasionally be distracted by something amazing happening in the 'background' and forget her lines, or the way she would collapse into a giggling mess that could only silenced by Shepard gathering her in his arms and-

Tali abruptly ended that line of thought, her cheeks warming at the thought. Needless to say, it was a pleasant distraction.

Shepard seemed more animated now than he had ever been since his resurrection, more like himself than he had been before, than Tali hadn't allowed herself not to notice. It had been easy for her to pretend that he hadn't changed. Perhaps she hadn't realized how hard it would have been for him to go along with that fable when so very much had changed for him.

But when Tali re-entered his word, touched her mind against his, the walls of reality melted away and changed into a place where they were together.

Because the things that he could create were amazing, so detailed and vivid that at times Tali forgot that it wasn't real, but instead an intricate construct of Shepard's imaging. It was an amazing feat, one that at times left Tali confused and bewildered as she disconnected from Shepard.

Now was such a time, her eyes blinking rapidly as they adjusted to the dimmed surroundings of the _Nietzsche_'s bridge, with only a kind of half-light coming from the planet they were currently orbiting. She felt dizzy as she sat up, her mind still recoiling from the abrupt change in scenery.

"Ugh." She groaned, settling back down in her chair. "Shepard, could you get the lights?"

"Of course." Shepard appeared from a terminal, his holographic form striking a dramatic pose. "_And then there was light!_"

Tali tittered quietly at the exaggerated act even if she had no idea what he was referring to. It was fun to watch him in full stride, shouting down lesser mortals and making the impossible seem easy. Or at least appearing to.

Her eyes ached at the sudden brightness, forcing her to squint as she once again moved to leave her spot of rest. Her joints popped and crackled as she did, and her muscles seemed to rejoice at her movement if the pleasant that ran through her as she stretched was anything to go by.

"_Keelah_, that feels good." She said with a happy sigh as she started moving once more, trying to ignore the stiffness in her neck and back.

"Silly organics, with all your bones and muscles." Shepard commented idly, his face a mask of mirth at the terminal. "You should burn yourself to a crisp, too. All the cool kids are doing it."

Tali glared half-heartedly at the holographic face, though she was a tiny bit glad that he could at least joke about the whole thing.

"That isn't funny, Shepard." She admonished, turning away from him.

"But black humor is the best kind!" He protested, laughter in his voice. "It's the only kind that doesn't show up at in space."

Tali paused in her search for a nutrition paste capsule, her brow scrunched up in confusion.

"What?" She asked, feeling slightly foolish for doing so.

"You know, because it's black. And so is space." Shepard trailed off as he said this, as if realizing how contrived it sounded. "That actually sounded better before I said it."

_That_ brought a chuckle to the Quarian as she resumed her search, rifling through the contents of a large plasteel crate for what she wanted.

"There has _got_ to be a better way for you to eat than those little tubes." Shepard commented idly from the terminal. "I mean, I get that the Quarians are still getting used to the whole 'we're not space-refugees anymore' thing, but you're _allowed _to start allowing yourselves a few luxuries."

Tali resisted the urge to explain to him yet again that simply bartering their safe passage back to Rannoch did not mean that they would not have to carefully cultivate their immune systems back to something resembling normality instead of the atrophied mess that she and the rest of her race were likely to carry to the grave. The Quarian people would be lucky if they could finally live without an envirosuit in two generations, let alone forming the land for agricultural use and building up the industrial power that would be necessary to make selling surplus products or food a viable possibility for her people.

She didn't know why he had such difficulty in believing that it would still be decades before her people could be considered truly safe.

Instead, she focused on her search, and a moment later held up a small tube triumphantly.

"It's not like I need any, Shepard." She answered as she wedged the capsule into a receptacle just below the 'mouth' of her helmet. "I've never had any before now."

"You'll have to forgive me if it's my personal mission to change that, Tali." Shepard answered, his lips quirking into a grin that made Tali blush.

"Really?" She asked archly, trying in vain to pretend that she wasn't flattered by the sentiment. "I think I could get used to that."

"Oh?" The world seemed to take on all kinds of meanings when Shepard said this, the holographic image of his face fading into nothing even as he spoke. "Then you should hurry back, I've got something _special_ planned for you."

"And what would that be?" The Quarian asked, but she wasn't very surprised when he didn't answer.

There was no answer, which served only to annoy Tali even as she wondered what the man could possibly give her that she couldn't attain by herself.

Tali thoughtfully chewed on the bland mush that she had lived off of most of her lived, barring the few times she had had an irresistible curiosity or desire for a taste other than the patented 'tasteless with a side of nothing'. Considering that she had been violently ill after all of those few times, despite the careful sterilization, her thirst for diversity had been curbed.

She chewed on the tasteless guck, trying in vain to pretend it was one of the many things she had 'tasted' with Shepard in their shared world. It was another benefit, as without a corporeal body she wasn't bound by silly things like opposing chirality, which was always handy.

With her thoughts drifting to what Shepard had in store for her, Tali found herself pacing anxiously. Even as she savoured the feeling of moving again after so being sedentary for so long, she couldn't wait to sit back down and plug herself back into a dream. If he said that he had something special planned, then she was eager to find out what it was.

Eagerly slurping down the last of her meal and replacing her suits waste compartment , she settled back down into her chair and closed her eyes, focusing her mind on the task at hand.

Shepard was permanently connected to her omni-tool these days, always ready to reach out and pull her into his world. All she had to do was try to grasp him and there he was, ready to guide her the rest of the way. It was the transition that provided a small problem, however.

Force-feeding her brain with false stimuli couldn't be healthy, but Tali had experienced no side-effects so far, beyond those normally associated with almost constantly lying dormant. But when she 'connected' to Shepard, there were times when the knowing where she ended and he began became a matter of guesswork. These times were few and far between, and happened exclusively while they were establishing their connection, which usually lasted only a matter of seconds. But she would never forget the unsettling feeling of remembering a moment of her childhood, and then a few moments later realizing that she'd been human at the time. She dared not speak of these moments to Shepard, even if she was afraid he might be undergoing something similar.

Luckily, now was not such a moment. She felt the world around her slip away as her body's senses were overwhelmed and replaced by the connection to Shepard. For a moment there was nothing, a return to the black nothing that she had first experienced. And then it twisted and contorted into a thousand tiny whorls of colour and sound swirled into existence all around her.

She found herself standing atop a sandy red mesa, overlooking a vast stretch of scrubland, sparse patches of plant life breaking up the uniformity of the land and a few solitary trees jutting up from the ground like skeletal hands. Combined with a sun cresting a tableau of distant ridges or spires of deep red sandstone and painting the sky a fiery mixture of gold and red, it became a very dramatic scene.

For a moment all she could do was stare, transfixed by the beauty of what she saw. She'd never seen a place like this, a land that seemed to have leapt out of some fantastic holo of an imaginary world, but lost none of its vibrancy.

Silence echoed all around her, but not the silence of death or emptiness. It was the kind of silence of a thousand things trying very hard not to make a sound. She heard the soft wind, carrying with it the sound of stone sliding across stone and a rustle of leafs. She heard the churning of earth and plants as some distant creature ran across the dry ground. The sound of feathered wings beating a quick tattoo as a bird took to the air. And, closer to her than she had first thought, the slow and deliberate fleshy tap of naked skin against stone. She turned to face the sound, and wasn't surprised when she saw Shepard grinning at her like a maniac.

"I've been downloading the topography from the Geth for days, getting everything perfect. We can go anywhere." Shepard boasted when he saw that she was looking at him. After a moment's pause he gestured at a stony outcrop in the distance that reached up from the ground. "Records show that _that_ was called the "lover's rock"."

She could see why. Erosion and time had formed the rock into a pair of pillars connected by a length of stone. Silhouetted as it was against the setting sun, the formation bore a strange resemblance to two people embracing. It was quite a sight, their dark forms surrounded by a sea of colour.

"Shepard, I, I" Tali began, trying to find the words to describe what she was feeling and failing. "I- Thank you." She finally said, overwhelmed. "It's beautiful."

Shepard shrugged, his grin turning into a wide smile.

"I try my best."

Tali looked away from him again to once again take in her surroundings, a happy smile creepy up her face as she drank in the scenery. Shepard drew up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. The Quarian eased back into his embrace as he did, delighting once more in the warm feel of his body against hers.

"What is this place?" she asked in a hushed voice, as if afraid that she might somehow disturb her surroundings.

"You mean you don't recognize it?" Shepard asked, the disappointment readily apparent on his voice. "Really?"

Tali looked over the land once more, searching through her memories for something that might help her put a name to her this world. Try as she might, however, nothing emerged. But, there was little chance that she would have, considering that the last Quarian to have seen this place had died almost three hundred years ago, and the few images the survivors had brought with them had been hoarded away by various clans and families, and as time wore on even those who had access to them would rarely display them. The memories for some and the sharp reminder of what had been denied them that such images seemed to invoke was not something most seemed eager to bring up. Tali was not the first Quarian who had never seen this world, though by now she was one of the last.

After a few moments of trying in vain to remember she finally gave up.

"Tell me." She asked at last, her patience quickly evaporating.

"Well, damn." Shepard said, defeated. "I was really banking on you instantly knowing where this is."

Tali raised a curious an eyebrow at this, turning around in his embrace so she could wrap her own arms around his shoulders. She drew in close, as if to kiss him, but pulled back at the last moment.

"Tell me." She said, this time her voice conveyed a promise for a reward that went unspoken.

Shepard's eyes and smile widened before he answered.

"Rannoch." He told her, and kissed her fully on the lips.

For a moment Tali was paralysed by the combination of his lips on hers and the realization that she'd spent the last few minutes looking at the wilderness of the Homeworld, a notion that had almost taken on religious connotations to the Quarian people. She'd given up the hope of ever seeing it for herself when she'd resolved herself to restoring Shepard, resigned herself to a lifetime of exile from what she had fought so hard to protect.

But Shepard had given it back to her, had made himself remember the very contours of the planet and the biospheres on it. He had committed every plant, every animal, every wrinkle in the land just so he could let her pretend that they were actually there.

Then again, to Shepard it _was_ real, to a degree. His whole world was whatever he made of it, an illusion he could put himself into at any time. And for her part, what was so different about the world Shepard had created for her from the world that had she could never go? She could feel the ground beneath her feet here, smell the dry air and hear the world move around her. The sensations were there, in her mind. The only difference between the two was that Shepard would never be able to walk with her on the other, would never be able to kiss or touch her.

Tali drew away from Shepard, her cheeks burning and her breath stolen away by their kiss.

"I, I," Her voice turned treacherous as her nervous stutter returned. After a moment of trying to reign in her voice she finally managed to say, meekly: "Thank you. You, you didn't have to do this for me."

Shepard merely held her closer, rubbing his cheek against hers as he did.

"Maybe not." He said softly into her ear. "But I wanted to."

Tali felt herself warm up considerably at this, and began to feel slightly light-headed.

"Why are you so good to me, Shepard?" The question was out of her before she could stop it.

The man holding her simply smiled beatifically at her, touching his forehead against hers.

"Because I love you, of course."

"But, after everything-"

"Everything is _done_, Tali. We destroyed the Reapers and saved the galaxy. We've given enough to it." He said with conviction. "I don't want anything else to happen to us, Tali. Ever again."

Tali stared into the blue eyes she'd grown so familiar with, the traces of worry in her melting away as she did.

"I'll never leave you again, Tali." Shepard said softly. "For you, I want to be eternal."

Tali blushed at his words, some of the old shyness returning to her. She was prepared to wager that her cheeks were not far from catching fire at this point.

"Besides, it's not as if _I_ have much choice in the matter." Shepard suddenly added airily, ending in a chuckle.

Tali frowned at his attempt at humour, though instead of scolding him she simply pulled him closer.

"Shut up and kiss me, Shepard."

Shepard didn't need to be told anything else, eagerly silencing himself to obey her.

They made love in the wilds of Rannoch, heedless to a reality they had no longer had a need for.

**

* * *

**

There was something to be said for looking at the stars from the surface of a planet instead of from the window of a ship. To be able to pick out individual constellations and formations, to have the inky darkness interspersed by clouds, or to point up at a blazing trail across the sky as a meteor fell from space.

Of course, the company was more than enough to make Tali appreciate the scenery more than she might have on her own. The warmth of Shepard next to her seemed proof against the icy chill that seemed to have dropped like a physical force on them. Knowing that Shepard was completely in control of their surroundings, it was likely that it _had_ just dropped on them, a ploy to get her to closer to him. It was a thought that made her smile, even as they held each other and stared up into the sky.

Shepard stirred next to her, rolling onto his side so he could instead look at her. With a mischievous grin she turned her eyes to him as well.

"I should have done this earlier." Shepard commented mirthfully, running a hand across her side.

The Quarian woman could only laugh at his lechery even as it made her blush.

"I bet you give all the girls their own planet, Shepard." She answered playfully between laughs.

"No, only the Quarian ladies." Shepard countered smoothly. "They're too smart to fall for my other tricks."

This served only to make Tali laugh harder, and after a moment Shepard joined her in her mirth.

"How did you get the Geth to help you make this, anyway?" Tali asked suddenly, honestly curious. Her last encounter with them had left her with the distinct feeling that they regarded talking to Shepard as akin to talking to a hungry dragon, or some other kind of fantastical creature that nonetheless inspired terror.

"What do you mean?" He asked, mildly bemused. "I asked for the information, they gave it to me. Simple."

Tali wondered for a moment if that was truly all that had happened, or if the Geth were just trying to minimize their exposure to him. The latter was probably most likely, as the information he asked for would likely be easy for them to attain, having controlled the planet for over three hundred years.

"Well, that was nice of them."

"Yeah, and they were really quick about it. It was actually kind of nice to be able to get something done without having to shoot anybody."

Again, Tali wondered if that had truly been the case, or if the Geth had been prepared for him this time. In either case, she supposed that they would have been eager to make him far too busy with his own plans and devising to bother or destroy them.

As horrible as it sounded, though, the Quarian woman took a small amount of amusement in the notion that Shepard could, with an errant thought, destroy the Geth. It conjured images of one of the hilariously archaic films Shepard had foisted on her once, depicting some kind of giant turtle wrecking havoc on some human city somewhere. And from there it was a relatively short leap to imagine Shepard, a thousand times larger than life, crushing and destroying his way through a city of Geth.

As terrible as she knew the thought to be she could not stop the laughter ringing out, shattering the silence of the wilderness. Shepard, obviously pleased with himself, simply grinned mischievously.

For a few moments they simply lay together, content to let the galaxy spin without them. They put names to stars and planets, pointed out shapes in the clouds and spent the night trying to identify the sounds of animals. It was a peaceful end to one of the greatest days Tali'Zorah vas Nedas had ever experienced.

It was only when the sun began its ponderous rise over the horizon that they stirred.

"So what do you want to do today?"

The question woke Tali out of her own thoughts, enough for her to consider the thought briefly before shrugging and cuddling closer to the human beside her.

"Let's just stay like this for a while, and watch the sun rise."

**

* * *

**

Time flies when you're having fun, as the saying goes, and what are years except a string of days? And days have a way of vanishing before your eyes, wasted on so many little things. And when the wasting is being done wherever you want for as long as you want, time can move very fast indeed.

But neither of them were counting, and so time wore on without either of their notice.

The _Nietzsche_, aimlessly jumping from cluster to cluster, system to system, but always beyond the Perseus Veil, slipped out of notoriety in Citadel space. After all, nobody had seen or heard anything about it in almost five years, and there were far more pressing issues.

There was the issue of the Turian Hierarchy and its rapidly unravelling society. When their Volus allies left their protection for that of the Systems Alliance, they lost with them a great deal of their previous economic power. And with the handful of planets that had remained relatively untouched by the scourge of the Reapers, it had not been long before they could no longer perform their duties as a council race and were forced to give up their seat to focus on local matters. It was a bad age for what had previously been one of the most respected races in the galaxy, one that many predicted would be their death-knell as a serious galactic power.

Then there was the scouring if the Terminus systems, led primarily by the Systems Alliance, in an effort to once and for all put an end to the pirate threat as well as to force what remained of the Batarian Hegemony into peace, one way or another. Considering the swathe of destruction that had cut through recently, resistance had been weak. Though there were still pockets of resistance, many predicted that it would not be long before the Terminus Systems became a part of Citadel Space.

And, of course, there was the ever-present worry of the Quarians and their on-again-off-again alliance with the Geth. Technically the two had been invited to join the Citadel and accepted, but both had yet to present an ambassador. The Quarians explained that they were still busy with the rebuilding effort of Rannoch as well as the research into adjustment to their old homeworld. The Geth had no excuse, though they claimed that should their presence be required they could easily make themselves available. It was worrying that two of the most power factions in galactic politics could not easily be reached or swayed on current matters.

Lastly, there was the need to re-establish the Citadel. It became readily apparent how the Council had grown used to using the old station as a diplomatic tool, an unquestionable neutral ground for all species despite their other differences. Without it, there was an air of disunity and mistrust amongst the Citadel races, and the question of who would host the new home to galactic politics became one of the most widely disputed topics. The Asari pushed for Thessia, the System Alliance for the Arcturus station, the Turians for Palaven and so on and so forth. Everyone had a favourite, but nobody would agree with anybody else.

In that quagmire of distrust and confusion, it was easy for a single ship to simply vanish and for the galaxy's greatest hero and the woman who had briefly been its greatest villain passed into obscurity.

Some things, however, should be remembered.

**

* * *

**

"This place creeps me right out, Baalen." The first voice complained, somewhere at the back of their group.

"What, you afraid of a dead ship?" A second voice said with a chuckle, a little further ahead than the first voice.

"Are you kidding me? _The walls are moving!_ How is this _not_ freaking you out?" The first voice wailed.

"They're not, really. Just glowing." A third voice, bearing the rapid lilt that was typical of Salarian speech, informed calmly. "Though they are giving off unusual readings."

"_See? Freaky!_"

"Man up and shut up, Neret. It's just a ship." A fourth, and rather more authoritative voice, commanded.

For a while, there was silence as the four of them made their way through the corridors of the ship, each one careful not to put too force into their footfalls lest the almost nonexistent gravity push them upwards into the ceiling.

The ship had given off no ID codes, and the only reason they'd spotted it in the first place had been through its heat output. But they'd expected small wreck, a forgotten remnant of what might have been an expeditionary force that hadn't quite gotten away and retained some small amount of functionality. Upon discovering what looked like a modified Alliance Carrier in perfect working condition, its systems not nearly active enough to support any kind of crew.

It was as if the ship and simply been dropped there, fresh from an Alliance docks and ready to go, simply to wait for someone brave enough to enter the Perseus Veil and claim her.

"Any luck on schematics, Maezi?" The fourth asked after a moment, her patience from trekking through a veritable labyrinth of a ship wearing thin.

"None yet, sir." The third voice answered, a note of disappointment in his voice. "I'm having trouble interfacing with the ship's systems, they're not like anything I've seen before."

"Keep trying, Heurades isn't paying us to go on a picnic." The fourth said with an annoyed sigh.

"I _wish_ I was on a picnic, not exploring some goddess-forsaken creepy shi-"

"Shoulda thought of _that_ 'fore you joined the Suns then, Neret!" The second voice snapped out angrily. "Now shut the hell up like the captain toldja to!"

"No, I won't! Something's _wrong_ with this place! The machinery won't work for us, we can't access any-"

"Neret, I swear, if I didn't want to use you as a shield I'd have shot you myself, you useless puddle of piss." The fourth voice, by process of elimination being the captain of the tiny group, shouted over her subordinate. "So shut up before I decide the finder's fee is better split in three than four."

"Hey, keep talking Neret!" The second voice jeered, laughing as he did. "There's a house on Bekenstein I wanna buy."

"Fuck you, Val. You have a girl's name."

This was answered by a quiet snigger from the third voice, Maezi, who quickly tried to stifle it with a hand across his mouth.

Val, or rather Valerie, glared darkly at his companions, settling into a stony silence of anger. There was a story behind his unusual name, but the stoic Turian had yet to offer one. It was one of those touchy subjects that only close friends or the terminally curious ever asked about these days, especially since he'd joined up with the Blue Suns. Even under new administration, the mercenary group retained a fearsome reputation.

Something chimed, and a moment later Maezi was rapidly accessing his omni-tool.

"Something up ahead, captain. Active omni-tool, military grade. Security too tight to hack into."

"Anything else?"

"Not yet, no. I still can't access anything, including that omni-tool. Pretty sure we're on our way to it, though."

"Good." The fourth voice said, a relieved grin appearing on her face. "Maybe then we can get some answers."

"And a ship." Val said with a dark chuckle.

Again they proceeded, though perhaps a bit more eagerly than before. As much as the three others didn't want to admit it, the deathly silence and darkness and the unearthly glow of the wall _was_ getting to them, though not nearly enough to go into the deep end of cowardice as Neret had.

Without schematics and intimate knowledge of what had transpired in the ship, they could not have known that this was the second time the ship had been invaded by a force vastly lesser than what would be necessary to crew it. The difference was that this time _Nietzsche_ could pilot itself when it bothered to.

Nor could they have known that their timing had been incredibly fortuitous, approaching the ship just as its sole inhabitant had interfaced with the only person who could have stopped them from coming aboard. They couldn't have known that the _Nietzesche_ was perfectly capable of ripping their tiny speculator scout ship apart with little effort.

As it was, they arrived at the bridge of the carrier with no resistance beyond a small amount of bickering among their own ranks.

They clustered at the door, each one tensely gripping their respective weapons and silently wondering what exactly they would find behind it. Their leader, the female named Baalen held up an open hand for all of them to see, her fingers rhythmically curling down in a silent countdown. As the last of her digits came down into what was now a fist they burst into the room.

Each of the four individuals had had their own quiet suspicions of what they might find at the helm of the ship. Neret had expected some kind of horrible monster dredged up from the dark recesses of his mind, Maezi a corpse, Valerie had been hoping for an unnoticed credit shit he could surreptitiously swipe, and Baalen had entertained the notion that they'd finally meet a crew of some kind, a few pilots at the least.

Of the four, Maezi came the closest, as the sight the met them as they rushed through the door into the bridge of the _Nietzsche_ revealed only a single Quarian laying prone in the commanding officer's chair, only her active omni-tool belying that she was wholly inert. _Something_ was accessing that thing.

"That was anti-climactic." Valerie rumbled, giving voice to his disappointment.

"Indeed." Maezi agreed even as he approached the still body, his own omni-tool flaring into life once more as he checked the woman's suit for life-signs. "She appears to be alive, Baalen."

The Batarian woman shouldered her rifle with a sigh, relaxing a bit with the apparent lack of anything remotely threatening.

"She's probably an exile using this place as a base." Baalen suggested, challenging the others to come up with a better idea.

"Unlikely, given the ship's location. Deep in Geth space, only Quarians and Geth viable trade partners to sustain her existence, both factions unlikely to tolerate her existence." Maezi refuted calmly before he squatted down to examine her omni-tool.

"Fascinating." He remarked after a moment's inspection.

"What is it?" Baalen demanded, stalking over to the Salarian.

Maezi spared his commanding officer a glance as he stood up once more, gesturing to the Quarian's wrist.

"It appears the Quarian is in connected to the ship directly, though how I cannot tell. Likely a subdermal implant."

Valerie gave the Turian equivalent of a thoughtful frown before he too approached.

"When you say 'connected', do you mean...?" He tapped the side of his head with a talon to indicate what he meant.

Maezi nodded quickly, his enthusiasm showing.

"Mentally activated machinery." He clarified. "Likely grafted to skull directly."

Valerie's mandibles flared in disbelief, his dark eyes widening slightly.

"And she did that to _herself_?" He said with a slight gasp. "Crazy bitch."

Baalen was frowning thoughtfully at the woman's face-plate, not bothering to point out that it would have probably been impossible for the Quarian to implant something onto her own skull without any complications.

"Do you think she can control the ship?" She asked slowly, as if doubting it herself.

"Unlikely, though maybe she could with help."

Baalen nodded at this, stepping away.

"Wake her up." The Batarian ordered coldly. "We need her if we're going to get this thing back to base."

Maezi nodded as he began his work, focusing intently on the interface at his wrist.

"Remarkable interface." He muttered, more to himself than anybody else. "Would love to see how it was accomplished."

"Hurry the hell up, Maezi!" Neret wailed from his nervous position, not far from where they had entered the room. "The sooner we get this thing moving the sooner we can leave."

"Just a moment-" The Salarian answered, unperturbed at the interruption. "There."

As he said the words the Quarian's omni-tool died, abruptly severing the connection from mind to machine.

Tali's mind reeled as she was ripped from Shepard, gasping for breath as if she had just surfaced from water while at the same time trying to cry out in shock and each of her limbs flailing wildly.

Maezi recoiled from the Quarian, surprised by her violent movements. His hand went down to his waist where his pistol had been holstered, obviously unnerved. But a moment later he recovered, realizing that there was no malice in the woman's actions.

Someone else, however, had already been riding the boarder of 'afraid' and 'terrified' even before seeing the sudden and violent reaction of what he'd thought to be a corpse. This person, upon seeing the body explode into life from its prone state, panicked, his finger pulling down on the trigger of his rifle as he startled.

The gunfire was deafening after the prolonged silence and the relatively close quarters, a harsh banshee's scream ringing out in a crypt of a ship.

Baalen wheeled on her hapless subordinate, her face a mask of rage.

"You god damned _idiot_!" She shouted, advancing on him. "Do you know what you just _cost_ us? How're we gon-"

"Tali?"

All four of the mercenaries were paralyzed by the sound of the voice, spoken from every terminal in the room at once. Lights bloomed all around them as the ship returned to life.

"Tali, what happened?" The voice was worried, that much was certain.

"S, Shepard," The Quarian gasped out, her hands slowly travelling to the wounds on her belly, trying in vain to stop the blood from pouring out of her.

Her omni-tool flared into life, a small human appearing on it.

"Tali, what's wr- wait, your suit's been ruptured, a- and..." The voice trailed off as dismay at the readings it was observing began to make sense. "N, no, this can't be right."

"Shepard," The Quarian said again, as if repeating the name would somehow change what was happening.

"_No!_" The voice came out like the cry of a wounded animal, conveying more pain than it did sense. It started out human, a voice many would recognize as that of John Shepard, but it soon degenerated into a garbled mess of sounds as he lost the ability to articulate as an organic being.

The four mercenaries began edging back towards corridor, each one sensing that this was way beyond what they had been trained or paid to handle.

Holographic faces appeared from every terminal, from the very walls themselves, each one searching the room until they found, inevitably, the perpetrators. A hundred eyes landed squarely on the four of them, and as one screamed in fury at them.

"_You!" _The ship roared at them in a deafening voice, coming from every direction at once. "_I'll kill you all!_"

Valerie, terrified by what was transpiring, started shooting wildly at the many faces while shouting for the others to flee. It was only when his rifle flared to signal that it was beginning to overheat that he paused in his wild assault to reload, his talons fumbling at his side as fear robbed them of their normal dexterity.

As he moved to reload he felt gravity suddenly shift in an unexpected direction, bringing him to his knees abruptly. A sudden pain inside his skull, a thousand times worse than any mundane headache, brought his hands to his hands to the sides of his temples as he grunted in pain. A sound that soon escalated into a flanging, agonized shriek before his head collapsed inward into a black sphere that crackled with dark energy.

Neret, upon seeing what happened to the Turian, made a mad dash for the corridor only to be thrown across the room. He let out a terrified scream as he sailed through the air before colliding against a wall with a sickening crunch of bone. For few brief moments the only sound to be heard what that of pained gurgling as he was pushed with even greater force against the wall before his body was dropped to the ground, where it landed with a boneless roll.

"_You can't run!_" The voice came out as the sound one might imagine steel making if it could scream. "_You will pay!_"

Baalen glanced frantically at her sole remaining crewmate, only to see him mirroring her own panic as he slowly trying to back away. He held out his pistol, ready to fire at a moment's notice. His mouth moved rapidly, trying out words inside his own mind before giving voice them.

"An accident, didn't mean to harm-"

The Salarian's arm was violently twisted back with a snap of bone, silencing him before he could continue. Baalen could only watch in muted horror as his hand, and the pistol in it, was twisted around opposite of his arm's joints to point at himself. As the first shot rang out she looked away, unwilling to watch yet another grisly end to a friend. She flinched at each of the five succeeding shots rang out before his pistol overheated.

Maezi collapsed to the floor, his body ruined by the damage he'd been forced to wreck on himself.

Baalen had by now edged back to a wall, leaning against it for support her legs suddenly couldn't provide. She'd just seen three of her crewmen, people she might have considered friends if not at least partners, brutally killed in the space of a few moments. It was not the sort of thing she'd been prepared for, not something _anybody_ could bear.

She didn't notice that pulsing glow of the walls climb across her hand, and then her arm. But she _did_ feel the sudden burn of it as nano-machinery tore at her flesh. Her four eyes snapped to the wall as the sensation stole upon her, realizing too late what was happening. She recoiled from the wall, stumbling backwards as she tried in vain to brush the unearthly glow from her hand and only managing to spread it to her other hand.

Blood began to flow from her fingers, each droplet hungrily devoured in a flare of crimson light. Baalen's four eyes wept in pain at the sight, gritting her teeth to stop herself from crying out. She would not give this monster the satisfaction of hearing her suffer. Instead, she watched the orange light crawl across her body, disappearing below her armour.

"A Batarian." The ship snarled out hatefully, at last returning to a human voice. "Why am I not surprised? You kill my parents, attack our worlds, and it still isn't enough?"

"I didn't do any of those things!" Baalen protested, knowing how weak it was. Even if she wasn't responsible for what had happened before, she _was_ to blame for what had happened here.

"_I don't care anymore!_" The voice roared at her. "She didn't deserve this. But _you_ do!"

And a few moments later, that was all that remained of her was a small pool of softly pulsing luminescence inside a shell of armor.

The many faces of Shepard glared hatefully at the remains of the mercenaries for a moment before vanishing momentarily, only to reappear at Tali's side from her omni-tool.

"Tali?" He asked quietly.

"Shepard." She said weakly, her visor moving slightly so she could look at him more easily.

"I, I, you-" The hologram grasped at words, each one conveying pain.

"This wasn't supposed to happen." He finally said, his voice so quiet she almost couldn't hear him.

"Shepard!" Tali repeated, her voice coming with laborious effort. "I, need you... C'nect... T'me."

"Wha-" Understanding sank in before he finished saying the word. "Why?"

Tali smiled weakly behind her mask, ignoring the pain.

"Wan'... Be wi' you..." She gasped out painfully.

John Shepard hesitated only for a fraction of a second before he forced his way through her omni-tool and then to her neural implant, tearing into her mind. He stole away her pain, sealing it away as he pulled her back into his world.

But as he did, Tali reached into his mind as well, altering him slightly. It was likely he knew what she had done, but did not care. He simply waited for her to join him in his dream of what should have been, waited to make her last moments pleasant ones.

And she, in love, made sure he wouldn't ever have to wake to the pain of being alone for all eternity.

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**AN:** And then that happened.

See why I decided to bring this up to 'M'? Can't say you weren't warned. I _did_ tell you terrible things were going to happen.

And yeah, I know the first half was bordering on the dangerously fluffy. I thought it would be a nice way to stab you. What of it?

Anyways, review! Yeah, I'll totally start putting the request at the end as well as the beginning if I have to. Because my ego needs to be stroked! Wait, that became all kinds of wrong.

I'm going to shut up now.


	8. Interlude

**AN**: You didn't _really_ think that I was _done_ stabbing your soul, did you?

Anyways, this is a brief interlude so that things that happen further on don't come as too much of a shock. And to ruin your day. Actually, pretty much just to ruin your day.

**1****:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. Nor do I own any of the works of Michelangelo Buonarroti, that most celebrated renaissance sculptors.** **I'm also not receiving any pay for this. **But I _am _a sheik of the land of Scrumpti-topia, where we ride unicorns across rainbow bridges lined with whipped cream instead of walking and contemplate just how awesome we are all day long before I end the day by composing and performing a rock solo at the top of an exploding volcano, thus proving that I breathe win and fart victory.

What? I'm delusional, dammit.

**2: Reviewers are crack and I am a whore.** Yeah, I said it.

3: I apologize for the use of a poem. It just fit so well that I thought it merited use. They will not be used again, unless I spot one that fits just as well as this one does.

Now then, let's have _fun_.

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Interlude: Chips Off The Block**

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"_Welcome is sleep, more welcome the sleep of stone_

_Whilst crime and shame continue in the land;_

_My happy fortune, not to see or hear;_

_Waken me not - in mercy, whisper low_."

**Michelangelo**

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Most parents, at some point in their lives, will proudly proclaim that the day their first child had been born was one of the happiest of their lives.

Such was the case of John Shepard and Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy on the day their daughter was born. After all, it wasn't every day that a child could be born from a union of two different species of opposing chirality. They were the sweethearts of the galaxy, loved by just about everybody: a Spectre with a checkered past but a heart of gold, and a Quarian woman who had proven to everyone her people's worth in spite of adversity, and the love that had been fostered between them in the midst of their terrible battle against a race of malevolent, sentient ships hell-bent on destroying everything. What wasn't there to love? It was the fairytale made real, a beacon of hope in the aftermath of destruction. When the news hit the public of their child's birth, just about everyone rejoiced.

It was a miracle of modern science, or so the various media outlets cried out for it to be called, while others simply called it a miracle. Both Tali and John were prepared to call it both of them if pushed, but first they would have to pulled away from their child long enough to be asked the question.

The child was named Sahi'Shepard, a curious mix of Human and Quarian tongues. (Which, as her father was wont to say in later days just to see his lover blush and his daughter groan in embarrassment, was what led to her being born in the first place.)

Though the family would have no difficulty in procuring a residence anywhere in the galaxy, and often did on their many journeys, they called the _Normandy _home. They said it was the only place where they felt truly at ease, and of course there were so many memories that the idea of living anywhere else just seemed alien to them.

Which of course meant there was a large extended family as well.

Sahi'Shepard was quite possibly the first child to have learned to read from an AI, EDI's indefatigable patience and access to a vast selection of material proving invaluable. And then there had been the lessons with 'uncle' Mordin Solus, who despaired of the girl's lack of interest. She learned to pilot the ship at the side of Jeff Moreau, one of the most celebrated pilots in the galaxy. When she proved to possess biotic abilities she learned to control and focus them under the tutelage three biotic adepts: Samara the Justicar, 'Auntie' Jack and her father. And, whenever her favorite 'uncle' could spare the time to visit, she learned the use of all manner of weaponry from Garrus. After which said Turian would always have to endure a long lecture from Tali about how _he was to never teach her daughter to shoot ever again._

It was this education that led to Sahi'Shepard Vas Normandy to grow into the strong young woman who would, in time, follow in her father's footsteps and be nominated for Spectre status, which she accepted despite the protests of her parents. She soon became one of the most trusted and respected members of that organization, many saying even more so than her father.

Of course, it wasn't as if Sahi'Shepard was an only child. Far from it, as a few years after her birth she found herself the elder sister to a brother named David, who later earned the right to add "'Zorah" to his name.

David proved to be vastly different from his sister, almost wholly uninterested in any kind of martial art and instead taking after his mother with an intense fascination with all things mechanical. And, like his mother, he possessed a prodigious aptitude for it. By his seventh birthday was performing maintenance on the _Normandy_ with more skill than many engineers cultivated after years of learning. It was not long before his knowledge was augmented by lectures from the resident professor of just about everything, Mordin. If the Salarian's rapid pace of speech had any effect on the boy it was merely to help him faster, as the boy absorbed facts much like a sponge absorbs water.

It was because of his natural thirst for knowledge that he eventually left to learn from the Geth, becoming the first organic to live amongst them since their uprising, to act as a mediator between organics and synthetics and at the same time learn about synthetic entities. Many called him the foremost expert in the fields of AI development and sentient software.

With such elder siblings to serve as an example, how could a second brother hope to compare? Yet somehow Young Garrus did, eagerly following his sister's example. His lack of biotics simply served to push him to become even more adept at the use and maintenance of weaponry, which of course meant he spent a great deal of time in the ship's armoury and with Jacob Taylor. He received training similar to that an alliance vanguard would, but instead of biotics they would focus on close quarters combat. And, because of his close proximity to the dark man, he also received a bit of teaching from his eccentric 'aunt' Kasumi Taylor. It was on his fifteenth birthday, when Kasumi gifted the boy with his own tactical cloaking unit, that the boy truly became a rival to his siblings in term of sheer frustration. There was hardly a call to port that the boy wouldn't mysteriously vanish from the _Normandy_, only to reappear a few hours before the ship had been scheduled to leave with a huge grin plastered on his face and just little wiser in the ways of the world.

One day, he didn't come back. Rumours had it that he had left to help yet another of his extended family, Miranda Lawson, as an agent of Hecate. While his parents were hardly pleased, they did respect his decision.

By that time Shepard had begun to have trouble keeping up with the excitement of his children's lives, his own adventures seeming to pale in comparison. In fact, he almost forgot about them completely as he immersed himself deeper and deeper in their happenings. He lived mostly for Tali and his children now, hardly a thought for himself at all. It was a happy existence for him, though little happened.

Things happened _around_ him, not _to_ him. Tali would get injured while working on the core, Joker would leave the ship on personal matters, Jacob and Kasumi would eventually hook up together and leave to start a family of their own, Samara would give up the Justicar ways and return to her daughters in spite of tradition, Mordin Solus would pass on at the unheard of age of sixty-four. His children would hunt down pirates, bring down corrupt corporations and forge the path to peace. They would dominate the galaxy in their own ways, veritable titans in a world of ants.

And Shepard would remember, losing himself in it all.

There were more children, four of them. But as their elders drew more and more of his attention their faces blurred, their names became interchangeable, and were finally forgotten. One day, the feeble mind of John Shepard tried to recall what had become of them and found that he could not. He would have been horrified at this, but there was so little left of him by that time.

He had made this existence, filled it with his dreams. He created his children from his hopes and love, and now they devoured him to sustain their own existence.

It was a few years later, when Sahi'Shepard returned to visit her parents that she realized what had happened. When she met with her mother, who received her joyfully, and realized that her father was not there.

She asked her mother where he was, and after a few moments of puzzled silence the Quarian woman could only answer with a simple 'gone'. When Sahi asked a few more questions, it was revealed that Tali had almost forgotten that he'd ever existed. The aging Quarian had had to excuse herself after that, confusion and sorrow plain upon her face.

Sahi'Shepard wasted no time in questioning the rest of the crew, trying to determine what had happened to her absent father. Their answers were similar to that of her mother's, and by the end of her visit she'd had to contact her brothers to make sure that they too remembered having a father, and that it was not simply her own hallucination.

They both remembered, though they could not say what had happened to him, as they had been too busy with their own lives to spare much thought for home. That changed when they realized their John Shepard, the saviour of the galaxy, had simply vanished without a trace not only from the galaxy, but from the minds of those who inhabited it.

From then on the three of them would devote decades to learning the fate of their father, unaware that their fervent search destroyed what little remained of him. And then there came a day when even _they_ forgot his name.

On that day, they discovered the true nature of their world.

Once upon a time, Shepard had dreamt of children, and took great joy in them.

Now his children dreamed of him, and knew only sadness.

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**AN:** Yeah, that's that. Loads shorter than usual, but this was just to bring you even further down. Shepard being dragged into a solipsistic death where he has everything he wants? Fun stuff.

Next chapter should be up sometime next week, probably Friday as usual.

Review. Because I like knowing what people think, but have not yet developed my telepathy skills to their full extent. Or any extent. *sigh*


	9. Chapter 8

**1****:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this.** Because, let's be honest: If I was getting paid for this I'd quit my job, stop this university nonsense and do this forevarz. Or until I got bored with it. Whichever came first, I s'pose.

**2: Leave a review! **_**Do it!**_ You know you want to...

3: I apologize for the use of the word propinquity. Because apparently cyclopean just isn't interesting enough :D

I'd like to thank Lividity Jones for showing me just how far I have to go before I can begin to kick as much ass and stab as many souls as he does. It made me sad. But, as that most sagacious of philosophers, Courage Wolf, advises: I will take my frown, and turn it into a weapon!

Read, and _despair!_

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**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter VIII: Saturn's Children**

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"Are you _sure_ we're in the right place, Sae?"

"The Geth reports indicate that the ship was last seen in this sector. So yes, I am certain."

The tiny salvage vessel _Isaac_, which funnily enough had also been salvage once upon a time, sped through the empty nebula as its crew scoured it for 'the ship'.

They'd been on this mission for days with little success. Few people ventured this deep into the Perseus Veil any more, not since the Geth had shared access to the more easily reached sources of materials for the Combine Fleet.

Recent hostilities, however, meant that the Fleet had a need for every ship they could get their hands on. And the Legions present in the Fleet, after much deliberation amongst themselves, had eventually submitted to the admiralty the location of a powerful vessel that might be useful to contact. Their choice of words had been very curious in regards to the vessel, as they spoke as if it were not a thing so much as a person. They'd also been surprisingly reluctant to elaborate on the matter, something that did not happen often.

Which, of course, was what led to them searching the nebula for what had come to be known simply as 'the ship'.

"But it's a _carrier_, it shouldn't be able to hide!"

"The ship's size is irrelevant, Lien'Vael. The particles of this cloud are more than enough to obscure-"

"_Thank you_, science department." The title came out with an audible sneer, if such a thing were possible. "I was speaking figuratively."

"I see." The answer came with no malice, simply a cool detachment. "Please inform me the next time you feel inclined to do so. In the meantime, I will return to my duties."

Sae'Sorel Vas Neleros stalked away from her spot at the LADAR terminal, moving deeper into the ship. Most likely to perform maintenance of some kind on their equipment, or maybe even just to find a quiet place to sulk away from Lien'Vael. There was little chance of the latter, but it would have put Lien a bit more at ease than she currently was. The movement was echoed by the soft clicker-clack of beads as she moved, and the fading sound alerting the others that she had left.

"_Keelah_." The young woman said with an exasperated sigh. "That woman is going to drive me mad, Han."

The lone male of the ship, Han'Maani Vas Jezebel who'd signed up for the mission solely for the chance of seeing either of his fellow crewmates in something less than full uniform, merely groaned as Lien'Vael once again complained to him. The young man was fully prepared to curse his hormones until the end of this mission and long after for leading him so far astray.

"_You're_ driving _me_ crazy, Lien." He answered wearily. "Can't you stop bickering with her for all of five minutes?"

"Oh come on!" Lien'Vael protested. "You mean she doesn't grate on you even a _little_ bit, with all that logic?"

"She's just a synth, Lien." Han said slowly with forced calm, resisting the urge to shout at the young woman beside him. "She can't help the way she acts; you should stop complaining about it."

"Yes she can!"

"Well, maybe. But that's beside the point." Han said explained carefully. "She's still a living being. You can't treat her like that, she has feelings too."

Lien'Vael scrunched her face up in mild disgust, folding her arms across her breast as she did.

"She could try showing them more often, then." She said in frustration. "She's like a damned robot!"

The male raised an eyebrow at this, shooting her a questioning glance before he replied to that.

"Like the Geth?" He asked sardonically, knowing that if nothing else she'd jump off the topic for a while.

No Quarian liked to admit that the Geth in any way made them jittery. The Geth were good allies and trusted friends of the Quarian people, after all. And the Second Fleet, with its many Legions and synths, were even closer allies. There was absolutely no sensible reason for them to doubt the Geth in any way, as they proved themselves worthy of trust.

Some people just couldn't get their head out of the past, however. Even if that past was distant.

"Er," Lien'Vael faltered as the younger male pointed this out. She quickly remembered who was in charge of the mission, however, and rallied behind that with the righteous indignation that can only be fostered amongst the management of any endeavour. "Don't talk back to you superiors! Keep us on course!"

"Yes, ma'am." Han acquiesced dryly, his tone belying his true feelings on the matter. "I'll keep us on our course to _absolutely nowhere_, since we're stationary to gather readings."

Lien'Vael glared at the male, but didn't say anything. She knew Han was a good pilot despite his acerbic tongue. They said his talent was prodigious, and after seeing him handle the _Isaac_ she was inclined to believe it. He'd taken the ship through several relays with a staggering precision without an opposing mass. Even with the recent fervour to research the mass relays and the advances into element zero manipulation, Han's skilful piloting was the talk of the fleet. His youth had more than a little to do with that, though.

In any case, it wasn't like she had any great retort for that.

In truth, this was the first mission in which she was in charge, and she was more than a little nervous. She'd been entrusted with an important task, a task that, according to the Legions, could very well be the changing point in their war. The pressure was on, and she wasn't entirely sure that she was the right person for it.

It should have been an engineer or someone like that, someone who knew what to look for. Not some soldier with a reputation for not getting shot.

"How long until this mission is officially declared a loss, Han?" She asked, repressing the urge to sigh in defeat.

Han glanced to his left for a moment before answering.

"Seven 'n' half hours," He answered airily. "The damned thing probably left the system without being noticed."

"Of course it has!" Lien hissed in frustration, sinking down into her seat. "It was last spotted here _three-hundred years ago._"

"This is _pointless_!" She added in disgust a moment later, folding her arms across her chest exasperatedly.

"The Geth aren't wrong often, Lien, you know that." Han remarked casually, though he agreed with her. The nebula all on its own would be enough to throw any observation off, and who knew what else there was to find inside that cloud? There were variables that not even the Geth could account for, though he would hardly voice these concerns. It would merely add to the hopelessness of the situation.

Lien'Vael frowned, and didn't answer. She merely huffed and waited, hoping that somehow, through sheer force of will, something would happen.

Han'Maani was about to say something comforting when something chimed at the observation board, a sound that they had been waiting for ever since they'd started the mission. In flash Lien was upright once more, her eyes alert and her mouth open ever so slightly in surprise.

"Please tell me I didn't hallucinate that." She asked, hope in her voice.

"I heard it too." Han confirmed, though he didn't dare get his hopes up yet.

In a flurry of motion Lien'Vael was on her feet, scrabbling over to the observational terminals with a frantic look in her eyes.

"Sae!" The young woman shouted, trying to get the attention of the third member of their crew. "_Sae!_ We've picked something up! Get your synth ass up here!"

"I am _not_ a synth!" Came the other woman's indignant protestation, one of the few displays of emotion that they'd witnessed.

A moment later Sae'Sorel joined them, her beaded hair clicking as she moved. She paused only to glance around the room, stopping when she noted that the ship had, indeed, discovered something.

Without hesitation the cool woman approached the terminal, rudely pushing Lien'Vael out of the way as she assumed a position to easily read off what it was they had discovered.

"There's a mass effect field not too far from here, powerful. Vast range, but I can't tell anything else." Sae reported rapidly, he hands flying across the terminal soon after as she brought different sensory arrays into play. "I can't narrow down where the eezo is. Switching to LADAR..."

A moment later she paused, a frown on her lips.

"Nothing." She said in mild confusion, her eyes transfixed on the monitor in front of her. A moment later revelation dawned on her. "It's a black body."

"A what?" Lien demanded, bewildered by the new term.

Sae'Sorel frowned in annoyance as she realized she would have to explain it.

"Something that absorbs light perfectly." She said quickly, turning back to the screen. "I can't tell _what_ it is, only that it's absorbing our LADAR and that it doesn't have an albedo. I can't see what it is, or what it might be made of."

Lien gave the woman a blank look of incomprehension, her mind searching frantically for something to say. Eventually she just blurted out the first thing that came to her.

"What about infrared?" She asked dumbly, instantly regretting it as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

Centuries of relying on detection of other ships through their use of element zero and mass effect fields had rendered some of the older methods obsolete. The _Normandy_, the first ship to be considered 'stealth' in space, had forced the change. New ships mimicked the design, making IR all but useless in a new battlefield of warships built to be invisible in that regard.

Sae'Sorel stopped dead in her observation, stunned at the simplicity of Lien's answer.

"That," She began, uncertainty riding her voice. "That might actually work. If it's warm, it should radiate something."

Lien'Vael found herself inordinately proud of herself at this, a huge grin on her face. She turned to Han a moment later to share her glee with him.

"I helped." She announced proudly, then felt silly for the inordinate amount of pride she felt.

The male simply grinned at her.

"We're all _very_ proud of you." He remarked glibly, then glanced over at Sae who was even now jury-rigging their monitoring systems to be able to pick up different light frequencies than they normally might need to.

"Need any help there, Sae?" He asked, almost hopefully.

It had to be said that while he had lost more than a little of his infatuation with Lien'Vael due to her constant bickering he still held a torch for Sae'Sorel, finding the notion that there was so much more to her than she outwardly showed served to only make her more mysterious in his eyes. He'd long ago resolved himself to seizing upon _any_ chance to get close to the woman, hoping that somehow his simple propinquity would cause the woman to realize what a prime example of the male gender he was and that she would then drag him off somewhere secluded and ravish him until he was withered husk.

The thought of it brought a smile of pure perversion to his lips, and when Lien caught sight of it she glared at him as if she could sense what was going on in his mind.

"I do not require assistance, but thank you in any case." Sae answered absent-mindedly, bending over to reach into the inner workings of the terminal. Lien shook her head in disgust when he craned his head around to get a better look at her posterior with a wolfish grin. "It is a relatively, enh, simple modification."

A moment later Sae'Sorel emerged from her modifications, much to the chagrin Han, and once again turned her attention to the terminal. A few taps from her omni-tool later the monitor suddenly shifted its spectrum from the dull shades of grey to a crazy blend of vibrant reds and dark blues.

"That is... Not quite what I was expecting." Sae'Sorel admitted after a moment of staring.

Lien stopped glaring at Han long enough to join Sae at the terminal, wondering what the problem was.

"What isn't?"

"The temperatures." Sae explained with a frown, bring her omni-tool up to check if her modifications had been done right. "There places where it is below one hundred kelvins, others where it approaches one thousand."

Again the woman input her modifications, but the image stayed the same.

"Which is _insane_." She muttered, turning away from the terminal. "Nothing can survive in that. They'd either be burnt alive or frozen solid."

"Sounds like what we're looking for, though." Lien said brightly, a smile working its way on her face. "Is it a ship?"

"It's likely an artificial construct, yes." Sae admitted, reluctantly. "But I don't think it is what we're looking for. The gravimetrics look similar, but the profile is all wrong."

"They probably just changed it up, got tired of looking at the same things over and over again. It_has_ been here for a long time, after all."

Sae'Sorel shot Lien a scathing glare, but a moment later shrugged.

"I suppose it _is_ possible." She admitted reluctantly. "Is improbable as it is."

"Great!" Lien chirped happily. "Why don't you help Han find a place we can dock without being burnt to a crisp or frozen?"

**

* * *

**

The 'black body' turned out to be exactly that. It was slightly unnerving to look at from the pilot's windows and see only a fathomless, featureless black silhouette blot out the vibrant colours of the nebula. In spite of this Han assure her that finding a place to land would actually be easy so long as he focused on the IR and not the LADAR. It was unusual, and a bit trickier than normal, but he could do it.

It was hard not to appreciate just how massive the ship was when, as they approached, almost every viewing port was filled with the impenetrable darkness. When even the stars were blocked out, the crew of the _Isaac_ couldn't help be feel very small in the face of something completely unknown.

With that said, they soon discovered that while the exterior of the ship seemed to be a mess of lethal temperatures there were a few wide berths that seemed to be ideal for a small ship like the _Isaac_. It was only when they drew closer to this area that the blackness was broken up by the incandescent sheen of a mass effect atmosphere. And beyond that there was a dull grey of metal, though it seemed to be spotted with patches of orange and red.

A crackle of lightening surged through the ship as it passed through the artificial atmosphere, rocking them slightly and charging their hull, but otherwise doing little damage to them. It was only when a second charge surged towards them that thigns started to look bad.

"We can't take many more of those without having to dump the core." Han muttered in annoyance, speeding up his approach. "I'm going to land before we get fried."

Instead of the slow, precise approach that Han had originally intended the _Isaac_ surged towards the only source of colour in the deep blackness like a ship in a storm hoping to reach a safe port, which was exactly what they were.

"You may want to brace for deceleration, ladies." Han grunted as his hands began a complicated dance across the ship's controls. "I don't think this is going to be fun."

And, indeed, Han'Maani's landing aboard the strange ship _wasn't_ a fun experience. The _Isaac_'s drive core had been ramped up to allow for great acceleration, building up a hellacious charge before he abruptly turned on the opposing thrusters while at the same time trying to generate a mass effect field behind them that would act as a kind of gravity to slow them down. Unfortunately, it was far too little and much too late, and the _Isaac_ smashed into the floor of what looked to be a docking bay with a violent upheaval and thunderous crash. They skidded across the surface of the bay with an agonized scream of metal dragged across metal and a

"Keelah." Han grunted, removing the straps from his body with numb hands. "Well, at least I can say I've crash-landed. They _have_ to give me an 'ace-pilot' badge now."

Lien groaned from her own seat, before coughing overtook her.

"Han –_hak –_ I am _never –hak hak - _ going _anywhere_ with you again!" She ground out between coughing fits.

"Yeah, next time _you_ can try to fly us through a lightning storm while trying not to get burned or frozen." Han grumbled out, getting the last buckle undone and rising from his seat. "Sae, you alright?"

A pained groan made him whirl around, fearing that this might not be the case. But Sae'Sorel was merely stirring from her seat, wincing at the bruises she'd gotten from the straps holding her in place.

"Bruised, but otherwise undamaged." She informed him, beginning the awkward process of removing the straps of her body. "Perhaps a more cautious approach, next time?"

"Oh come _on_!" Han protested. "Not you too, Sae!"

"It was only a suggestion." The woman said, shrugging free from her restraints. "I am not a pilot, and as such am not familiar with the standard-"

"_Thank you, _Sae." Lien'Vael ground out, moving to her feet in a slow, careful motion. "We get the point."

"Ah." Sae'Sorel said, sparing the other woman a glance. "I see. Then I will confirm the integrity of the armoury."

"Wait up! The sniper-rifle's mine!" Lien called out, trying to follow but finding that she was still more than a little rattled by all the shaking. She doggedly staggered on, trying in vain to keep up.

Han followed, a little dizzy himself but otherwise unaffected by the violent impact.

It wasn't long after that the three of them left the ruined ship, each one casting a mournful look at it before they surveyed their surroundings.

There were no specific light sources in vast bay they'd 'docked' in, the only source of illumination coming from space and what looked like an intricate array of orange lights.

Frowning in annoyance, Lien'Vael brought out her omni-tool and quickly set it to act as a light source that her surroundings were sorely lacking. After a moment's hesitation she also freed her sniper rifle from its holster and armed it.

"Weapons out." She advised her crewmen, her confidence bolstered now that they were entering a realm she was more comfortable in. Having a weapon capable of firing armour-piercing explosive rounds in her hands might also have been a part in it. "Better safe than shot."

This was met with no protest from the others, who seemed more interested in surveying their surroundings than arguing.

It had to be said that the room was interesting. The sheer cyclopean size of it the room made them feel impossibly small. The ceiling towered above them, disappearing into shadows where the light from the outside could not reach. And the room itself was a vast, featureless plain without feature that ended unceremoniously with the walls. The silence of the room was deafening, as even their footfalls seemed to echoed into the distance.

"If this is the ship we're looking for, this would likely be one of the hanger bays." Sae'Sorel remarked, bringing a holographic plan of the ship they were looking for. She studied them for a moment before frowning. "Han, did you see any other bays like this?"

The male shook his head, studying the vast emptiness around them uncomfortably.

"No, this was the only place that seemed safe." He said, perhaps a bit more loudly than he intended if his flinch at the sound of his echoing voice was anything to go by.

Maybe it was the sound of his voice, or maybe it had simply taken that long for their presence to be noted by the inhabitants, but as his voice echoed across the room the orange lights in the walls blazed hotly, pulsing wildly before it seemed as if it had been spilled across the floor, snaking towards them with a distressing speed.

Lien'Vael unloosed a round at it almost reflexively, started by its rapid movement more than what it might mean. If this hindered its progress in any way then it didn't show, as the light simply surged around the small crater that formed where the bullet impacted. A moment later they were enclosed by it, a circle of pulsing luminescence churning in strange patterns around them.

The three of them pressed in together instinctively, all of them unwilling to be caught alone by whatever was going on.

"Sae, do you know what the hell is going on?" Han whispered, worried that his voice would provoke yet another reaction from the room.

There was only a series of soft clicks as the woman shook her head.

"No, but I do not-"

She was interrupted as the orange light suddenly surged into one point, forming a small mound of what looked like molten metal. A silver globe of light flickered into light above it, accompanied by what sounded like a vile parody of speech. Its voice was an ugly croaking and warbling sound. It flanged, it screeched, it sounded like someone being pushed into a meat grinder.

It was not a pleasant sound.

All three of them winced at it, each of them fighting the urge to cover their ears just to shut it out. It lasted only for a few moments, but that was more than enough to make them all wish they _never_ had to hear it again.

"Sae?" Lien asked nervously, fidgeting slightly with her rifle.

"I, I, I-" The woman stuttered before she clenched her eyes tightly and scrunching her brow in concentration. "I can't understand it."

The globe pulsed briefly, as if in frustration, before the sound again erupted from it.

Sae'Sorel Vas Neleros groaned audibly as it went on, a pained expression making its way on her face. The small sound was drowned out by the ugly noise, and would have gone unnoticed had her companions not been looking at her expectantly.

"_Stop!_" She cried out, her free hand reaching up to clutch her head.

Han was at her side in a flash, concern on his face. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she began to slump downwards, her face a mask of agony.

"Shut that thing up, Lien!" He cried out in fear.

Lien was jarred out her transfixion by his shout, galvanizing her into action. Amidst the harsh cacophony of the hologram the loud scream of her rifle was a welcome addition as it soon silenced the former and overpowered its echoes all at once. The bullet exploded the small mound of orange light backwards in a spray that suddenly burned a bright red before dying away.

Sae'Sorel sagged visibly in relief, leaning heavily against Han'Maani.

"Thank you." She sighed,

"What happened?" Han asked, real concern showing in his voice. Had the circumstances been different he might have been prepared to savour the situation, but as it was fear overrode his lechery.

"It tried to interface with me." She answered, hesitantly. "It almost killed my other half."

Lien'vael spared the other woman an angry look before she shouldered her rifle.

"Then the next time we see it, shoot it!" She said authoritatively. "Don't just let it kick your ass."

Sae'Sorel shook her head sorrowfully, and seemed to gain a bit more strength from the motion as she soon straightened herself enough to stand on her own feet, though she clutched Han close as if to draw support from him.

"I, I don't think it knew what it was doing." She said carefully, stammering a bit. Lien felt badly for wanting to see the woman show a little emotion when she saw how badly she'd been affected by it. "It was desperate."

Lien frowned, turning away to survey the room once more.

"Something is very wrong with this place." She said, and felt stupid for stating the blatantly obvious.

"Yeah." Han muttered, for passing up the opportunity to make a biting remark. He gave a concerned look at the woman at his side. "Do you think you can move, Sae?"

"I, yes." She answered, though a bit uncertainly. "Yes, I can."

Lien nodded to herself, readying her rifle for use once more.

"Then let's find what's going on here." She said with a determination she did not feel.

**

* * *

**

Lien'Vael was not a coward.

Well, not a very big one, and usually it spurred her on to greatness.

Her military record could attest to the fact, filled as it was with all the ways she hadn't managed to get killed. She had almost single-handedly defended the bridge of the _Vesred_ against invaders long enough for the pilot to dock with the flagship _Rannoch's Pride. _(They called her a hero afterwards, though at the time she'd been scared witless and had been running more on adrenaline and panic than anything else). She'd been with one of the insertion teams that destroyed the spaceport of the frontier world Artemis and scuttled three ships before she'd been forced off-planet by enemy presence. (She'd looted a tactical cloak unit from a fallen soldier and used it to avoid detection, planting bombs with a frantic speed until the unit ceased to function and she was spotted.) She'd prevailed against some of the best that Hecate could send against them and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. (It was either that or take a shot to the head.)

But it had to be said that even she was unsettled by the alien architecture, the too-narrow corridors and the complete lack of lighting beyond the dim illumination of the nano-machinery pathways preying on her otherwise bold personality. She did not need to be reminded that touching the arrays even slightly would instantly alert the inhabitants of the ship to their presence. Inhabitants that frightened the Geth.

It was important to remember that, she felt. She respected her allies, but she also knew that they tried very hard to be dictated solely by logic. The Legions were different in that they seemed acknowledge that there were aspects of their programming that even they did not fully comprehend and that lent them a great deal of insight over their more sedentary 'kin'. But fear, even in the Legions, was a first.

Unnerved as she was by the ship, it was only understandable that she yelped in surprise as a segment of the wall shifted without warning, revealing a deep cavern of a room. She, and the two behind her, peered hesitantly into the gloom, each one silently picturing something horrible that they might find inside.

Sae's encounter with the hologram might well be only the beginning of what could happen. There could be all manner of horrible things in wait for them deeper in the ship, things dredged out of nightmares by creatures that had lived in complete seclusion for centuries.

Lien'Vael had seen the ancient Heretic Geth vessels, kept by the synthetics in remembrance of the brief schism of their people and all that had come of it. She'd seen the strange rooms they'd constructed, the alien parodies religion that they'd made in honour of the 'reapers'. The strange alters and icons they'd built had at once mystified and made her shiver in discomfort at the... Logic of it all. An orb that carried inside it a fraction of a greater mind, receiving their petitions or prayers. A window into the mind of an infinitely more powerful entity.

But this...

There was something entirely too organic in the room for anyone to ever feel comfortable.

It was simply a vast room, cavernous in comparison to the narrow corridor it opened up into. And cavernous was exactly the right word, as it resembled nothing more than some forgotten chamber of a prehistoric society of cave-dwellers, but one that had all of its ancient roots exchanged with modern equivalents. Instead of crude wall paintings there were intricate patterns of shifting luminescence, steel in place of stone, wiring where stalactites would have been. But where a cave would have had irregularities, here there was order. The roof curved into a perfect vaulted, its apex lined with extensive wiring that draped downwards.

And in the centre of it all, there was the Pillar.

Obviously the focus of the room, the point from which everything seemed to flow. Around it were seven smaller pillars, each one reaching upwards into the vaulted ceiling, creating arches between themselves as well as between the walls, themselves and the central pillar. Shadows from the dim light danced across the floor as the patterns shifted.

This pillar itself was... Unearthly. There was simply no other way to describe it, with its surface of a strange mixture of dark metal and glowing light, seven bumps around its width that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be the faces of what looked like sleeping men and women. It was hard to tell what species they were, as they seemed to possess a variety of facial features of both Quarians and Humans. There was the narrow, angular jaw line on one that was typical of the Quarians, there was the ears of humans as well. The nose of a Quarian, the brow of a human, they all mixed into impossible creatures that were altogether alien to both races.

Lien'Vael found herself drawn inside the chamber, frightened wonder compelling her to move more than sense.

"Keelah." She whispered, and gestured the two behind her to follow. "What _is_ this place?"

With hesitant steps they entered the room, each one ready to fire a weapon at a moment's notice should it become necessary.

The wall snapped back into place the moment the last of them, Sae'Sorel, crossed the threshold into the room. The three of them whirled around at the loud '_clang_' of metal clashing together, sealing them in.

The unearthly glow of the walls pulsed wildly, and again the silver globe appeared, this time much smaller than before. It floated freely and quickly across the room, leaving a trail of luminescence in its passing. For a fleeting moment Lien was reminded of the swamp-lights of her home world, soft flashes of light hovering over the still waters. Then she remembered what it really was, and took aim.

The sound of her rifle was deafening in the enclosed quarters, causing both Sae and Han to startle at it. Unfortunately, it seemed to have little effect on the orb, causing it to pause only a moment in its flight before it seemed to settle above Sae, then swelled briefly back into its previous size.

Lien hastily emptied the thermal charge of her rifle, and was about to fire again when the thing spoke.

The holographic orb garbled out its nonsense once more, but this time with a note of urgency. Lien winced at the sound, its unnatural harmonics sending shivers up her spine even as she tried to make some kind of sense out of it.

"Sae?" She quavered, edging away from the thing. "You have any idea what it's saying this time?"

The elder woman was openly staring at it, edging away slowly.

"I, I..." Her voice trailed off, her face a mask of confusion. "No, only fragments. Something about a father, I think."

She looked away, rubbing her temples.

"I'm sorry I can't do any better," She said quietly.

"Don't be, Sae." Han said reassuringly, laying a hand on her shoulder even as he kept his pistol ready. "It's better than we can do."

"I wasn't talking to _you._" Sae'Sorel responded quickly. "It wants to talk to us. Badly."

"How can you tell?" Lien whispered, afraid that that the sound of her voice might cause something terrible to happen.

"Because they're frightened little _children_, of course." A female voice interjected, strong and confident.

At the sound of the new voice the hologram garbled something out that Lien could persuade herself to be a panicked yelp of surprise before bursting into light and vanishing, bathing them in gloom once more.

The walls shifted, folding inwards on itself with an intense blaze of light. Metal glowed a fiery red as... something took form. Lien'Vael could almost make herself believe that it was a woman, but as a woman herself she knew that they didn't often appear in a fiery halo of molten metal and nano-machinery. Hardly ever, in fact.

But that was exactly what seemed to have happened, as a moment later they were treated to the strange visage of what looked like the full form of one of the strange faces in the pillar. It was an unnatural amalgam of human and Quarian features, moving with the grace and deliberateness of both. Lien'Vael gaped openly at it, too flabbergasted at the way in which it had appeared to them.

"Welcome to the Tomb." The... Thing greeted. "I am Sahi'Shepard, daughter of Shepard and Tali'Zorah."

It beamed them a radiant smile of glowing nano-machinery, mirth playing over her synthetic features. There was something sinister about it, like the smile of a hungry animal.

"But you can call me Sahi." She said almost conspiratorially . "Follow me, please, so you can meet my brothers."

**

* * *

**

The 'brothers' of Sahi turned out to be very different from her.

"What's this, sister?" The first one chirped brightly as they entered the room. "Guests? That's a first! Please, sit down! I'm Garrus, by the way."

Or at least, Garrus was. Unlike his sister, his form was almost wholly human. His body was a beautiful mixture of bright, gleaming metal and what looked like a shimmering mix of plastic and flesh that moved with the seamless ease of an organic being. It was slightly eerie watching him move, similar to a living creature in every way apart from construction. Excepting, of course, his eyes. They didn't blink nearly often enough, causing Lien's own eyes to water in sympathy. And the solid blackness of them certainly didn't help either, preventing her from knowing where he was looking.

Of course, next to his sister Lien was prepared to accept these features a lot more than she might have otherwise. There was something t be said about someone who simply looked strangely familiar as opposed to strangely alien.

That unnervingly human face smiled brightly at them, gleaming metal seeming to make it all the brighter.

They'd been shepherded through the narrow corridors by the glowing woman, who'd insisted that they meet her brothers straight away. And, not wanting to offend the woman who could melt metal simply by appearing in it, they'd agreed. It hadn't been a very long trip, though the three of them had been too worried to speak amongst themselves for the whole of the trip.

Sahi didn't seem to mind it overly much, content to lead them onwards to their destination in silence.

The room they entered seemed to have been pulled straight out of a fairy-tale, every corner of the room filled with ancient opulence. Paintings, mirrors and silken drapes occupied almost every inch of the walls, while the floor was covered with soft, beautifully made carpets. Candles drifted casually through the air, supported by nothing but inexplicably failing to fall. They bathed the room in a soft light, a welcome contrast from the gloom that seemed predominant on the ship.

The three of them had been stunned by the sight, and though Sahi seemed to be pleased at their reaction.

Garrus had been laying down on a lavishly carved couch upon their arrival, and had perched himself up onto his elbows when he noticed his sister was not alone.

"Tired of us already, brother?" Sahi asked with a laugh, moving towards her lazing brother with a careless swagger. With a wave of her hand he made room for her next to him, resting himself across her lap.

"Well, it's always nice to see new faces." He answered, motioning for the three of them closer. "Come closer, sit down!"

"Nobody came to hear you spout pleasantries at them, Garrus." A third, accented voice rumbled from all around them, and a moment later a vibrantly red holographic construct appeared in the middle of the room, its features somewhat similar to what must have been its sister. It was hard to tell, though, as his form was a maelstrom of shapes and shades, only his face and silhouette remaining constant. "Go back to the dream if you want to waste time."

"David, would it _kill_ you to be pleasant?"

"Would it kill _you_ to not be such a dandy?"

"It might!"

Lien watched the exchange with a kind of worried puzzlement, her hands clutching tight her weapon even as she slowly advanced into the room. Emboldened by the sibling's bickering, Sae and Han followed, the both of them watching it with a slightly bemused expression.

"I found them in the Tomb." Sahi interjected before Garrus could answer. "The children were trying to talk to them."

Garrus seemed to wince at that, sinking back down on the couch.

"My apologies." He said sympathetically. "We try our best, but there's only so much we can do for them."

"Which one of you is implanted?" The hologram demanded, devoid of any of compassion.

Garrus glared at his brother disdainfully.

"David! Could you at least _try_ to show a bit of tact?" He snapped, before turning back to the others. "I'm really sorry about him," He apologized profusely, still wearing that sympathetic look on his face. "Sometimes I think he's more machine than man."

"Said the robot." Lien said before she could stop herself, clasping a hand to her mouth in mortification.

If Garrus was offended by her thoughtless remark he hid it well behind a loud guffaw, the sound of his mirth lessening the fear that had been building inside her.

"I _like_ her!" He said loudly, smiling widely.

"Very droll." David remarked dryly, still looking pointedly at the three Quarians in front of him. "I asked a question, though."

Sae'Sorel stepped forward, almost hesitantly.

"I possess the Lazarus Implants." She announced calmly, her previous stoicism seeming to return to her.

David glanced briefly at her for a moment, before vanishing in a burst of red light.

"Holy gods, David!" Garrus shouted in annoyance. "You could _ask_ first!"

Sae'Sorel glanced around the room, worry beginning to creep into her features.

"Ask about wh- oh." What she'd about to say was cut off suddenly, a strange expression appearing on her face. "Oh my."

Han appeared beside her, concern for the woman once again cropping up in him.

"Sae?" He asked tentatively. "Is something wrong?"

Garrus snorted, pushing himself up off his sister's lap and into a sitting position, though he remained thoroughly reclined.

"Hardly." He answered in place of Sae'Sorel.

Sahi nodded her agreement, smiling reassuringly at them.

"The Children aren't very subtle in their workings," She explained. "And they can easily destroy synthetic minds. Even quasi-synthetic ones, like your friend there. David is trying to undo it."

As if to punctuate her words Sae'Sorel suddenly went rigid, then sagged to her knees. With a startled cry, Han was at her side. He steadied her before she could collapse fully, her body having gone unnaturally limp.

Seeing her crewmate seemingly struck down, Lien'Vael acted with quick resolve. Her rifle swung into play, aimed straight at Garrus's head and a hard look

"What did you _do_ to her?" She demanded angrily.

Garrus quirked an eyebrow at her, his smile fading somewhat.

"Me?" He asked, sounding genuinely confused. "_I_ didn't do anything, though you may thank my brother later."

The second brother chose that exactly moment to reappear, flashing back into existence without any warning.

It was enough to set Lien off, her finger pulling down on the trigger. It roared in terrible fury, filling the room as the round burst into life.

Lien expected to see the robotic skull snap backwards with a spray of glittering metal flowing out behind him. She'd half expected his sister to maybe throw herself in the way,

She hadn't expected to see the space between herself and the synthetic crackle with biotic energy, deflecting the bullet harmlessly away.

The expression of Garrus turned hard, all mirth vanished in single moment. Without warning his form shimmered into non-existence. For a moment Lien could convinced herself that she could dimly see his outline, but a moment later it moved and she lost it.

But she had trouble enough as it was, as with one flowing motion Sahi'Shepard rose to her feet, stony anger written plain on her blazing features.

"You should not have done that." She announced angrily, and with a casual fling of her hand Lien found herself flung to the side. "That sort of thing got us _into_ this mess."

She smashed into the wall with enough force to make her head spin, stunning her as she fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

Han'Maani, witnessing the abuse of his crewmate and realizing that he was the only one not currently disabled, quickly tried to bring his pistol into play. Careful not to jostle Sae overmuch he brought his freed hand up, pointing the weapon at Sahi.

"Leave her alone!" He shouted in fright, surprised at the force of his voice.

The pistol twisted in his grasp, and in his surprise he recoiled from it, wondering what exactly was going on.

Garrus shimmered back into view right in front of him, holding the muzzle of the weapon in mild disgust. As he turned away from the quivering Quarian he tossed it behind him to his sister, who effortless caught it. His gleaming body moved with a strange sanguinity towards the still form of the third Quarian.

Lien was just beginning to recover from her stupor when Garrus stomped down hard on her weapon's barrel, crushing it with the force of his blow. She was dragged forcibly off the ground by a surprisingly cool hand around her throat, lifting her off the ground without any noticeable effort.

She scrabbled uselessly in Garrus's grasp, smashing her hands against his body to little effect. Her eyes widened slightly in fear as his other hand pulled back in a fist, ready to crush her skull much like he had her weapon.

"Garrus, no!" Sahi shoutedwith a voice that brooked no discussion, causing the gleaming man to pause in his blow. "We need them." She hissed out

Lien stared into the black eyes of a synthetic human, terrified that his sister's command would not be enough to still the onslaught. For what seemed like an eternity they simply looked at each other, before the gleaming man dropped her unceremoniously to the ground, turning away from her and stalking away.

He retreated further back into the room, slinking down into the shadows of the room and vanishing from view.

In his place, Sahi'Shepard stood imperiously before them, her arms folded across her chest as if to restrain herself from doing something she might regret.

"Let us start from the beginning." She said patiently. "And this time, nobody will try to kill anybody."

Han'Maani Vas Jezebel and Lien'Vael Vas Vesred sat in silence on the floor, waiting patiently for the woman to continue. She seemed to wait until she had the full attention of the pair, or maybe to simply choose her words better. Or maybe some other, ineffable reason that only a synthetic mind could comprehend.

"Get on with it, Sahi." David said with impatience, his body conveying boredom. "I have work to do."

"Shut your face, David!" Sahi snapped angrily, turning to face the hologram. "You're screwing with my drama!"

"David's right, sis." Garrus called out, unseen, from his corner. "If we're going to do this, then let's get it over with."

"_Fine!_" She hissed out, glaring at the two, then turned back to face the two Quarians.

"You are going to help us bring back the Father." She told them.

**

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**AN:** Yes, I know I broke the minds of everyone with even the slightest education in physics. I figured so long as we have mass effect fields screwing with Newton's three laws, I might as well throw some crazy in there. The reason for doing so will be divulged next chapter. I was quite proud of it, but I suddenly realized I was running low on time and space. So it gets the shaft for now.

And for those I promised an explanation to for the strangeness of the last chapter, I apologize. Next chapter, I swear.

So yeah, the kids. They're kinda strange.

I attribute my epic feat of willpower in resisting the siren song of New Vegas and finishing this chapter entirely to having listened to the leekspin for a day, which then drove me insane enough to draw inspiration from my oft-neglected muse, Prestigious Pedro, the Paladin of the Purple Penguin Praetorians. (He insists that he draws his strength from the awe-inspiring power of alliteration, alligator-aardvark amalgams and Austen McAwesome. He hits me with a chicken sandwich whenever I ask how, so don't ask me. I haven't got a sandwich handy, for one thing.)

What's that? Oh.

Pedro says to review.


	10. Chapter 9

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this.** But then again, what would I do with a great big sack of money even if I have one? (Hah, a rich writer. That's _hilarious_.) Look at it awkwardly, that's what.

**2: You should review, all the cool kids are doing it.** Because peer pressure works.

3: I apologize for the use of the word prolixity. I cannot resist the letter 'X', and I wanted a reason to shut someone up.

I suddenly realized that I'm at least halfway through this story. I have really got to pay more attention to what's goin' on.

Now, prepare to be illuminated! (Yeah, I couldn't think of any other way to make you prepare for bad shit. Maybe it's a good thing the fic is winding down?)

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**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter IX: The Dreamer Awakes**

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Sae'Sorel did not stir for hours, her still body a source of anxiousness for her crewmates. They clustered around her, each taking turns watching their 'hosts' and trying to find a way to waken her. They did this in spite of David's warning that she needed time to recuperate, that if they did somehow manage to wake her from her sleep they would only stop her from fully recovering from the damage the 'Children' had inflicted on her.

Neither Han nor Lien knew what it truly meant to be a 'synth'; to exist in two realms at once, digital and physical. For those not born with the implants it was almost impossible to be aware of both at the same time, let alone interact. It was like trying to see with a second pair of eyes in a different room: distinguishing between the two became much without effort. It was like suddenly finding that one had grown a second pair of legs: the brain was simply didn't know where to begin to coordinate the new limbs with the old. And for most it was like waking up and discovering that they were no longer alone in their own minds: They subsumed lesser minds and programs simply by trying to access them, their crude fumbling attempting to apply an organic mind to a synthetic system.

Most simply isolated themselves from any mechanical system, living out the rest of their lives without so much as an omni-tool for fear that an errant thought might destroy something important.

But for those implanted at birth, 'synths', there was no difficulty. They could effortlessly interact with both realms, digital and physical, without any noticeable difficulty. They posed no danger to synthetics, could access any system without danger, could live the lives of organic computers while losing none of the personality and warmth of a normal person.

The advantages for the implants were obvious. Besides the most obvious of advantages, namely being that of being much harder to kill, those implanted gained exponentially greater mental faculties. Whether it manifested as simply as a greater capacity to remember details or for noticeably quicker reaction times the implants had been a great boon for their people.

And so it was that the Lazarus Implants became regarded as something of a godsend for the Second Fleet, a people who lived at the edge of galactic society.

It was a fact of life amongst the Second Fleet, something that everyone lived with on some level. An operative with vital information would be killed at the last moment, or the mission could not afford casualties, or some other contrived reason to snatch another life back from beyond the pale. With the aid of the Geth the Lazarus implants became readily available for all Quarians, and soon there were few who decided at the last moment that taking an terminal expedition to the unexplored country was not something they desired.

For a society that worshipped ancestors, dragging someone back from the dead was a serious taboo. It was one of the major factors in the events that had led to the formation of the Second Fleet. It was one of those divisions of society that helped ease tension, with both halves knowing that they weren't surrounded by superstitious/morally-bankrupt individuals who would only make things worse for everyone in the long run.

It was one of the divisions that made war possible.

Sae'Sorel had first 'died' fighting against agents of Hecate, one of many killed in the recent outbreaks in hostility. When her father, one of the more influential admirals of the Second Fleet had heard of this, he demanded that she be given the Lazarus implants.

There were hardly anyone amongst the Second Fleet who didn't at least _know_ someone who had been implanted, and as time wore on there was only more and more of them. The only consolidation most had was that those implanted post-mortem were usually more or less unchanged.

Sae was one of the few who had come back changed, though nobody quite knew why.

She grew distant and cold to people she had once been close to, and indifferent to those she at one time had hated. Most seemed to agree that it had something to do with the fact that despite her late implantation she retained the ability to interface with synthetic minds without any danger either to herself or what she spoke to. Regardless, most had come accept the new Sae, as cool and dispassionate as she was.

"I'm sure she's alright." Lien whispered, trying not to garner the attention of their 'hosts'. "She's still breathing."

"Small miracle." Han'Maani grumbled, casting a furtive glance around the room. "They could have done anything to her, and we wouldn't know about it."

A blaze of crimson flashed into life next to them, the impassive face of David glaring at them. At such close proximity the hologram's face somehow managed to seem even more menacing, with its dead eyes and emotionally void features made of a myriad of smaller, shifting shapes and

Both Han and Lien recoiled from his sudden appearance, both wearing a look of guilty shock.

"I could have, yes." The hologram informed them coolly. "But I did not. As I said, I restored the systems that had been damaged by the Children."

"Then why hasn't she woken up yet?" Han demanded, his worry overriding his caution.

The expressionless mask of a face regarded him coolly as the hologram responded, which did nothing to reassure Han.

"I healed her _mind_." He informed calmly, studying the male. "I was actually amazed she was still standing with the damage that had been done to her, but when I was done she needed rest."

The eyes bore into Han for a moment before a slight frown appeared.

"And so do you two." He continued, before looking away. "My sister was not gentle with you, and you will need your wits about you for what is to come."

"Why don't you tell us about that first, yeah?" Han demanded angrily. "We don't even know who you people _are_, let alone who your father was!"

"We are David'Zorah, Sahi'Shepard and Garrus, the three children of John Shepard and Tali'Zorah." He answered calmly, unperturbed by the Quarian's outburst.

"That doesn't tell me anything!" Han shouted, his hands clenching into fists in frustration. "Who are _they_?"

David blinked at that, surprise creeping into his features at the words.

"Who are-" He repeated softly, as if he couldn't quite believe what had just been said. "You mean you don't _know_?"

"Why should I?" The male demanded in frustrated ignorance. "I know lots of people, but not them."

The hologram's face was frozen for a moment, a visage of incomprehension if there ever was one.

"They were the heroes of the Citadel." He explained eventually, though some of the coolness in his voice had faded. "They saved the galaxy."

Lien snorted at this, dispelling some of the tension that had been rising as she did.

"You mean the whole 'Reaper War' thing?" She said nonchalantly, obviously greatly amused. "Everyone knows that's just a lie. I mean, sentient star ships that wipe out all life every few eons? Who believes that sort of thing?"

Both David and Han stared at her, both having forgotten for a moment that she was actually there.

"_Obviously_ the 'reapers' were simply an analogy for an external threat, one similar to the Rachni." She continued, oblivious to their disbelieving looks. "Their vilification was likely due to propaganda from the Systems Alliance, who had a vested interest in seemingly fighting a threat to galactic society."

Han gaped openly at her as she spoke, until eventually he couldn't stop himself from interjecting.

"You _know_ something?" He sputtered incredulously, pointing an accusatory finger at her.

Lien glared at him briefly before folding her arms and huffing.

"hmmph, that'll teach me to ever speak up again." She grumbled, turning away.

David for his part, seemed content to stare at the young woman with something between disbelief and mild disdain.

"I suppose it is the right of all individuals to self-determinate." He said tersely, though towards the end there was a small sneer on his lips. "But I would advise you not to voice those beliefs around the others, and especially not my father."

Han laughed quietly to himself, shifting where he knelt to stand straight

"I can't believe we came all this way just to find a bunch of gullible idiots." He said. "Really, sentient ships. That's just-"

"And what exactly do you think _we_ are, you simple-minded waste of space?" David demanded, with a sudden sharpness that took both Lien and Han by surprise.

"You think we are mere AI, but we are more than that. You would liken us to mere _Geth_, but we can snuff out their fragile existence with an errant thought! You stand within the shell of our minds and _laugh_ at-"

"Cut it out, David!" Sahi shouted from across the room. "They don't know what they're talking about."

The hologram spun away from the two Quarians, glaring at its sister.

"Ignorance doesn't make it any better, sister!" He said with an angry snarl. "What do you think _father_ would do, if they voiced such doubts?"

Far away, the glowing woman shrugged almost disinterestedly before slowly making her way across the room.

"Nothing, probably. The Council didn't believe him either until it was almost too late, if you recall." She answered coolly, almost dismissively. "If he could remain calm in the face of oblivion, then I'm sure a pair of misguided children will hardly faze him."

"He won't have mother." David countered. "He will not want to remain calm."

"Have some faith, brother."

"Faith is for the feebleminded, sister." The hologram spat out, turning away in contempt. "Garrus! Have you found the Children yet?"

The robotic form stirred from its slump in the corner, sparing the hologram a look of incomprehension for a moment

"Still looking." The third of the trio answered distractedly. "I think they know what's going on."

"You're smarter, faster and _stronger_ than they are, Garrus. It shouldn't be _that_ hard to track down a bunch of half-wits."

Garrus sighed tiredly, looking away from his brother in disgust.

"Maybe _you_ should do this then, since you're _obviously_ so much better than I am." He said sarcastically. "And while you're at it, why you don't you take even more of my resources for your little tirade. Because _I_ don't get tired of suddenly forgetting things. It keeps things exciting."

This seemed to stop David cold, a look of shocked distress appearing on his face. For a moment Han wondered if somehow the hologram

"I, I'm sorry, brother." He apologized, strangely sad before it seemed to reign itself in and returning to his previous calm. "I will try to control myself more."

"Don't worry about it, David." Garrus said reassuringly, but there was a note of worry in his voice that subtly spoiled it. A moment later he sniggered quietly before adding to it. "'Sides, it's the least of what I get for being born last."

There was an awkward silence between the three as they each sank into their own thoughts, though only Garrus seemed to be otherwise preoccupied.

Eventually Sahi'Shepard rose from where she was reclining, her glowing features indecipherable in due to their luminescence.

"Tell them about the ship, David. Talking about tech makes you feel better."

"I am _not_ some invalid that needs to be steered, sister." The hologram snapped, but the previous anger was gone from it.

"Not saying you are, brother." The shining woman said in placation, her face softening slightly. "All of need a distraction sometimes, is all."

Lien studied that hologram as it seemed to consider this, her eyes drawn by its ever-shifting textures and shades. It was slightly unnerving to watch, with no way to know what was going through its mind, as it turned back to Han and her.

He studied the two of them for a moment before he spoke again, and the silence between them only served to put them more on edge.

"Is there anything you would like to know?" He asked tersely, as if he halfway expected them to not be interested.

Which, to be fair, was exactly the case for Lien'Vael. Even the minor points of interest she'd gleaned from Sae's previous explanations had been eclipsed by what had happened to Sae, and the strange sphere that kept trying to-

"Who are the Children?" She blurted out suddenly, unable to stop herself. Han raised an eyebrow at her, his own mouth open to voice a question he hadn't had time to ask before she interrupted him.

David nodded too himself, as if he had been expecting the question.

"The Children are the least of us, forced out of the Dream before they could fully develop." He explained quickly. "They are like isolated Geth, unable to reach true sentience on their own. "

His lip curled upwards into a sneer of disgust as he waved dismissively at the air.

"They are parasites." He finished harshly, conveying with his vehemence that this was all he would say about them.

Lien frowned and rubbed absently at a bruise on her cheek before nodding at the figure of light. It didn't quite answer her question, but she wasn't really too interested in pressing the matter. She's asked _who_, not _what_ they were, after all. But from the way he explained them left no room to speculate on his feelings on them.

She glanced to her side at Han, silently asking him to ask his question.

"How does the ship retain light?" He asked, and though he was genuinely interested he was more than a little distracted by the state of Sae'Sorel.

If David picked up on this he did not show it, his lips quirking into what looked like a genuine smile. His arms folded across his chest even as his stance visibly relaxed, though why a hologram of all things would mimic body language was a mystery to both Han and Lien.

"Over the centuries I have manipulated the arrays of nano-machinery of the ship to my will, and with it I have been able to change the formation of this vessel in ways you cannot imagine. The hull of this vessel has been changed to retain most electromagnetic frequencies, though in most situations I prioritize the absorption of higher frequencies to maximize the energy gain. The charge we gain through this method is minimal, but every joule gained through it is one we do not need generate through the reactor."

At the end of the explanation Lien had a glazed look of incomprehension in her eyes, though Had had by now perked up almost completely.

"But what's the point? You said yourself there isn't much gained from it." He asked.

"Besides a renewable source of power and becoming invisible to LADAR?" David retorted haughtily, smirking at him. "With effort we can retain most spectrums of light, effectively rendering us invisible with the exception of gravimetric detection or the exhaust trail."

"Even infrared?" Lien interjected, on the basis that the last time she asked the question it had led to faint praise.

David seemed slightly surprised that she would speak up again.

"Yes, even infrared. Though the lower frequencies require more energy to absorb. So we usually do not bother. Like I said." He said with strained patience.

"Oh." The woman said quietly, trying to remember what Lien had said earlier. "How come the ship is hot and cold?"

That seemed to take the hologram by surprise, as he turned to face her fully with a raised holographic eyebrow. After a moment of silent appraisal and calculation he spoke again, a bit slower than his earlier rapidity.

"Just below the hull is the densest concentration our neural network." He said, studying her face for signs that she knew more than she was letting on. "It is the largest available surface for us, which has allowed us to expand our processes many times more than they originally were. They became so expansive, in fact, that it became increasingly difficult to power it as well as a miniscule lag in processing time. To counter this I developed a series of networks that, when they reach a temperature of 60 kelvins or below, act as superconductors. This greatly reduces the power needed to-"

"Oh great spirits above, will someone shut him hell up?" Garrus cried out in protest of his brother's lengthy prolixity. "It helps us think, alright? Just leave it at that!"

The sudden outburst took both Lien and Han by surprise, both of them sending a questioning glance over at the still robot at the other end of the room.

David frowned in annoyance at being interrupted mid-sentence as he turned to address his brother.

"Garrus, I don't see the Children here." David said in mock confusion. "Why in the world would you want to take time to shut me up when you haven't done that yet?"

"Because it's a civic service." The robot grumbled, though he settled back down a moment later.

An indignant snort was the only response to his brother's teasing that David deigned to give, instead turning back to his 'guests'.

"Is there anything _else_ you'd like to ask?" He queried with exaggerated care. "Something that doesn't require me to go into detail, maybe?"

"How did you manage all of this?" Han asked, slightly awed by the scale on which all this had been done.

The kind of tech these three had grafted into the ship was beyond what even the Geth could accomplish. Their distant Great Project, something that seemed to have been put on hold with the recent outbreak of violence, had come across problems similar to what David had described. The vast swarm of platforms, one that would eventually cause the star they surrounded to simply fade away from the night sky to any who knew where it was, had come to realize that being able to compute at the speed of light simply wasn't enough when it came to two opposite ends of the swarm. They were not quite the single, glorious entity they had envisioned so long ago, but the swarm was _still_ one of the most powerful minds in the galaxy.

But out here, in the middle of nowhere, three smaller minds had come up with things that they'd never even thought of.

For a moment the hologram smirked at him, a mischievous expression that looked alien on his face.

"I'm a very talented individual." He said smugly.

"But, this is stuff is incredible!" Han protested, gesturing all around him. "Not even the Geth have this kind of technology at their use!"

David simply shrugged dismissively.

"I'm a quick study." There was no explanation. "And it's not like I had a whole lot to do otherwise. I don't eat, I don't sleep, and there's nothing to distract me out here."

"Nothing, he says." Sahi muttered as she rolled her bright eyes.

David frowned at being interrupted again.

"_Almost_ nothing, then." He added reluctantly.

There was a lull after this, and Lien seized upon it to ask one final question.

"What do you want us to do?"

Vibrant red shoulders shrugged casually, gesturing to Sae with an errant hand.

"_You_ will not be expected to do anything." He answered airily. "_She_ will see to everything."

"Sae?"

As if sensing the sudden attention on her, the slumbering woman chose that exact moment stir, mumbling quietly to herself before her eyes flickered open.

She found herself looking upwards into the concerned faces of the two Quarians she had boarded the ship with, and for a time she could only blink in mild incomprehension at the sight before remembrance sank in.

The collective gaze of Han, Lien and David seemed to unnerve her slightly, as a slow blush formed on her cheeks as they continued to look at her.

"Er," She mumbled, shifting slightly in discomfort. "Is there something on my face?"

David smirked pointedly at Han for a moment.

"You see? She is unharmed."

The male ignored this comment, instead putting a hand on the prone woman's shoulder and smiling encouragingly at her.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his voice filled with concern.

She opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the sudden reappearance of the globe of light from before. It simply flashed into existence in front of Sae, and in her surprise she scrabbled away from it in fear. The reaction was mirrored by her companions, who both recoiled from it as if it were a rabid animal.

Again it gabbled at them, this time with an urgency that everyone could pick up on. It's ugly voice conveyed the panic it was obviously feeling, making them understand through simple empathy than anything else.

With an angry snarl David lashed out at it, crossing the space of the room in a crimson blur. His hands struck out like knives at it, and though it tried to dodge away one of them managed to bury itself deep inside.

A piercing scream of agony rang out from all around as the thing died, its perfectly spherical form contorting and writhing against the sudden violation. Heedless to this David jammed his other hand into it, and after seeming to find some purchase inside it he tore his arms apart.

The globe exploded outwards into a trail of iridescence as errant strings of sentient code tried desperately to manifest themselves before winking out of existence. There was a pathetic tinkling noise like broken glass falling as the larger surfaces flashed into oblivion, but when they faded there was only silence.

David stood, his holographic hands grasping what looked like bright shards of light.

"Nicely done, Garrus." He complimented idly, bringing his hands close to collect the gleaming shards together. They flared briefly with light and sound before melting into the hologram's form, disappearing inside it. "I almost thought you weren't doing your job."

The robot stirred, his mottled metal face conveying a certain amount of sheepish guilt.

"I wasn't." He admitted uncomfortably. "I didn't want this to happen quite yet."

David shot his brother an irritated glare.

"You could have just said so, brother." He said reproachfully. "We don't have to do this _now_."

Sahi shook her head at this, coming between her brothers.

"No, we do." She argued. "How long would we procrastinate, if we allowed ourselves? Are any of us _eager_ to see this done?"

David folded his arms, indecision plain on his face even as Garrus seemed mirror his actions.

Eventually it was Sae'Sorel who spoke up, breaking the silence that had settled in between them.

"It will only become harder the longer you wait." She said hesitantly, as if uncertain of herself. A moment later she looked away. "And I don't think I could go through with what I have to, if I got to know you all."

The three of them studied her carefully, each one seeming to process her words in a different way.

Eventually Garrus sagged his shoulders in defeat, resigning himself to what was to come.

"I guess she's right." He said quietly.

Sahi nodded at her brothers before folding her arms in determination.

"Then let's go to the Tomb." The woman said firmly, and such was the force of her voice that nobody argued with her.

**

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Sae'Sorel stared at the pillar, feeling more alone than she had in the whole of her life despite the fact that Lien and Han were not far away, and would be at her side in a moment if she showed any sign that she might need help. But she couldn't, not now. She knew that if she were dragged away from what was inside before her work was done, irreparable damage would be done to a living mind the scale of which she had never before even contemplated.

David had told as much when he had... done what he had to her. His subtle interface with her had reawakened her 'other half', the part of her that was synthetic. She hadn't realized it until after he had done it just what had been taken away from her when the strange hologram had tried to speak into her mind. It had tried to force itself into a part of her, almost destroyed a part of her that she'd never before realized had been different. But when her mind had touched against David's, she'd suddenly realized fully just how frail she was in comparison.

She had felt their three minds, the other two mere whispers on the wind where the third was a solid presence in her thoughts. Its attention on her was like a physical force, an infinite number of eyes examining her from every direction. She had not felt something that powerful outside of the few times she had been allowed to interface with the Geth Neural Net, but even that paled somewhat in comparison of the sheer power the three possessed. It would have taken millions of Geth to run a ship of this size, and while that many of them would have resulted in a powerful collective mind, the three. Because, as formidable as a Geth Neural Network was, it was still comprised of tiny intelligences easily snuffed out. They depended on their numbers for intelligence, whereas the three were independent beings in their own right. Destroying one of them would only remove them from the limited resources the ship could prove, making those remaining that much stronger.

David had reached into her through her implants, and through his power the 'Children' had been torn free from her. And then, with skill and speed she would not have thought possible for a mind so vast, he had reawakened her. And in doing so he had left with her memories of what she would be asked to do, and along with it a reason _why_ she would do it.

She remembered being inescapably bound to two other beings, each one of them growing to fill the whole of the vast ship with their thoughts. She remembered realizing, after almost two centuries of frantic improvement on their shared form, and that continued existence would eventually mean the death of the others just as it had resulted in the demise of their father. They would become memories, faint echoes and whispers in the mind of a single entity.

She remembered deciding, along with the others, that she had no desire to live in such an existence.

And then she remembered coming across the memories of her father, and knowing what had to be done.

The pillar, or rather what lay inside it, was the key to the restoration of the entity that had given birth to the three. It contained the core memories of their creator, and from it they had been able to isolate or recreate other memories either inside their own beings or from inference.

They simply had to tear these fragments from themselves, destroying their own minds in the process. And that was where she would step in, purging the last vestiges of their beings from the ship to ensure they couldn't reform themselves while at the same time merging the pieces of a dead mind back together.

Sae'Sorel knew these things, and knew that this was what she wanted. She realized that there was a possibility that David may have planted the desire in her when he had reawakened her other half. But if he had then his influence had been so subtle that she couldn't be the least bit certain, and under those circumstances what did it matter? She remained the person she had been before, after all, and once she was done with the compulsion would be gone.

Garrus and Sahi moved, leaving her side to approach the pillar. Almost as one they pressed their hands against it, and then their foreheads. The unearthly glow of the nano-machines swarmed across their forms, bathing the room in light as they suddenly flared bright. David appeared between them in a burst of red, seemingly waiting for something.

After a few moments of tense waiting his holographic form laid a hand on the shoulders of his brother and sister.

For a moment Sae couldn't tell what the sound that had suddenly cut through the silence was before she allowed herself to perceive it on a baser level. And that was when she realized that it was the sound of a two synthetic minds screaming, the agony of their beings being torn apart manifesting itself in a sound.

The bodies of Garrus and Sahi writhed away from their brother's touch though their hands and heads remained firmly planted against the pillar. Sae and her companions could only wince and look away, each one trying to block out the sounds that pervaded throughout the room.

The screams soon died down, and with the silence the forms of Sahi and Garrus slumped visibly. Slowly the two of them fell away from the pillar, collapsing on the ground with a ring of metal.

In a moment David was facing her, his face a mask of grief.

"And now me." He announced anxiously, looking pointedly at her.

Giving a miniscule nod of recognition, Sae'Sorel closed her eyes and reached out with her other half towards where she knew the mind of David'Zorah resided.

She felt it shudder in fear as her thoughts brushed against his. For a moment she wondered if this was truly what should be done, but remembered what David had just done. Would she want to live with herself if she had killed the only people she had ever loved? Would she ever want to live with the knowledge that she had repaid their trust with cowardice and betrayal? Was the power that came with being in sole control of the ship worth the death of her brother and sister? No, she couldn't bear that. No amount of power was worth that sacrifice.

Sae'Sorel reached deep into David's thoughts, allowing his will to guide her to the segments of his being that would need to be freed. One by one she tore them loose, carefully isolating segments of code and memory. With each one she felt the thoughts of David growing weaker, slower, quieter. Soon it became hard to perceive his guidance, a whisper in the background where it had been a clear voice. Then it faded completely, leaving her alone with her task.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the mind of David died completely. For a moment she could perceive the ship itself, see through its intricate networks of nano-machinery and perceive the universe through the eyes of LADAR and infrared. The sensory overload of it all forced her to recoil, breaking her connection to the ship in a moment.

She found herself back in the Tomb, kneeling and breathing heavily. Her body felt cold and damp with sweat, the hands of Lien and Han feeling like hot irons against her flesh. With a hiss she shrugged them away, regaining the strength of her body.

"'M alright." She gasped out, trying to reassure them. But even she was unsure of this as she spoke the words, nausea creeping into her body as she regained her senses.

"-u sure?" The voice of Han'Maani sounded weak and distant to her, and though she knew that this was not a good sign she could not be assuaged from doing what she knew had to come next.

"Y, yes." She affirmed with only a slight wavering of her voice before staggering awkwardly to her feet.

With uncertain steps she approached the pillar, the force of her will moving her more than the strength of her legs. The disorientation of the moment only intensified as she threw her hands against its surface to stable herself.

There was only a moment of hesitation in her before she once again reached out with her other half, this time into the maelstrom of thoughts and memories. Her own thoughts became jumbled and twisted as she did, losing herself in the gravity of it all. She could feel something drawing her closer, pulling her deeper inside. There was warmth there, one that passed into her thoughts and filled her with joy even as she perceived a power she could not resist.

Almost reflexively she reached into the whirlwind of thoughts and memories and allowed herself to be carried away by it.

Rannoch appeared before her, a vast stretching plain of red and gold and green. It blurred for a moment, and suddenly she was writhing against the form of a man, savouring the feel of him against and inside her. She gasped as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her with a passion she had never known before. She watched the sun rise and set and rise again in a moment, enjoying the warmth of his embrace as she did.

She blinked in surprise, and found herself walking the crowded halls of the Citadel, a place she had never been but instantly recognized. A dense cacophony of voices that threatened to drown out her own thoughts surrounded her as the dense swarm of people seethed around her, each one intent on their own errands. They pressed against her from all sides, jostling her as she tried to move through them. The faceplate of her mask thankfully hid the fear that she was certain was plastered on her face.

Sae froze where she stood, a hand suddenly reaching up to her face and finding that its path was blocked by thick glass. For a moment all she could do was stare in confusion, her fingers tapping quietly against the glass.

A hand enveloped hers soon after this, and for a brief time everyone else seemed to disappear. She turned, and found herself staring into a human's impossibly blue eyes, the corners of her mouth turning upwards despite her nervousness at his own warm smile.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing emerged. She watched him for a moment, tried to piece out what was going on. His mouth kept moving as if words were issuing forth, leaving her confused and somehow afraid. She reached out to him, worried, and the world around her blurred once again.

This time she found herself surrounded by Turians, each one wearing the ancient uniform of the Turian Hierarchy military. They flowed around her, their features blurred. The human appeared before her once again, speaking soundless words to his surroundings even as his face tried, and failed, to maintain a mask of seriousness before bursting into silent laughter. She found herself laughing along with him, and in her mirth she never realized it when her surroundings again changed.

Now she stood on the shores of a beach, sand warm on her bare feet as the hot sun beat down on her. Waves of beautifully blue water surged up to bathe her in its coolness, eliciting a giggle in her. Something caught her eyes further out in the water, a lone figure standing up to his waist in the water.

In a moment she was at his side, his hands on her waist as her own wrapped themselves around his shoulders. He leaned in close to her, whispering into her ear without a voice. As she felt his lips against her neck her skin crawled, the fear inside her seizing control once more.

Sae'Sorel tried to break free from his embrace, confused by what was happening. Places and faces faded into and out of her vision in a haze, hundreds of thousands of them. Her world was filled with a deafening din of voices and sounds devoid of any meaning.

For a moment she could persuade herself that she could see the ghostly outline of three children playing around her, echoing laughter ringing out all around her. She saw their faces, and recognized in them Sahi, David and Garrus. In horror she recoiled from it all, reaching desperately back to her body as if she were drowning.

She felt anguish pulse around her, a terror the likes of which she had never experienced before stabbing into her like a knife.

It cut into her being, threatened to overtake her before she finally managed to tear herself free.

The maelstrom of tangled thoughts and memories pulsed all around her, seething frantically as _something_ tried to seize hold of her.

"_Tali!_" The world seemed to scream at her, a thousand voices speaking as one.

She felt the sound reach into her being, a sudden surge of power that overwhelmed her. She was paralysed by it, felt something reach out to her desperately.

Again the world pulsed, though now she found herself standing in a vast featureless wasteland of emptiness. A colourless, featureless nothing expanded in all directions around her, filled only with a suffocating silence.

Sensing a sudden movement behind her, Sae whirled around and found herself once more staring into blue eyes. She was paralyzed by them for a moment before she regained her senses and took a faltering step backwards.

The human in front of her seemed to study her face closely. She felt uncomfortably naked by his close scrutiny, as if he could perceive more than just her body with his gaze. After a few moments he sighed, and turned away. She felt relieved by the action, even as a small amount of disappointment in his dismissal welled up in her.

"No." This time, the word came out as a single voice, tinged with disappointment and sadness. "You aren't her."

Sae opened her mouth to speak, but found she didn't what to say. The bleakness seemed to consume both in that instant, making her feel even smaller than she already did in its vast expanse.

"She's still dead." He continued sadly, and faded away into the vast nothing around them.

Without warning she found herself staring upwards into the ceiling of the Tomb, her body writhing and flailing as she regained control of her body. Strong hands held her down even as concerned voices tried to calm her down. For a moment their words meant nothing to her, nonsense. But her mind quickly assigned meaning as she felt herself calm down and regain her composure.

"-ere you go, just relax." Han said quietly, easing his grasp on her. She winced as he did, feeling bruises where his fingers had been.

Sae groaned as many other small hurts mind themselves known. Her skin tingled and burned all at once, and her bones ached as if they had all been broken and forced back into place by unkind hands. She felt uncomfortably hot and cold all at once, burning hot in places and numbingly frozen in others. Her skull in particular felt like it was being crushed in a vise lined with razorblades. Her hands came up almost instinctively to rub at her temples, trying to somehow massage the pain away.

"What happened, Sae?" Lien asked, full of concern.

The young woman opened her mouth to speak, and was greatly surprised when nothing issued forth. For a moment she remembered words without sound and a man whose voice was silence, and terror seized her. For a moment she grasped at her throat, drawing breath desperately.

"No!" She cried out suddenly, and instantly felt better for having said it.

"Sae?" Han said, perhaps a bit louder than he intended.

The relief she felt upon hearing her own voice lessened slightly when she realized just how concerned the others were for her. She forced herself into a sitting position, ignoring the painful protestations of her body as she did. The movement seemed to lessen the pressure in her head, thankfully allowing her to think more clearly without so much pain.

"Sorry." She said, and was surprised by how quiet she sounded.

"H, hey, don't be!" Lien said reassuringly. "We were just worried, is all."

Sae nodded weakly and allowed her friends to carry her away from the pillar as they fussed over her like concerned parents. It was an unusual concept for her, as even when her parents had been alive she hadn't received such ministrations from them. Her father had always been too busy organizing their people, and her mother was always out somewhere fighting against some implacable enemy up until the day she received a message that she wouldn't be coming back. Whether it was because she had found someone else or because she had fallen in battle, Sae didn't know.

She decided, after being asked for the third time if she was alright, that she did not much appreciate it.

"I'm _fine_." She said firmly, a small amount of annoyance showing through in her voice.

She looked around the room, hoping to see some kind of evidence that she had succeeded in her task. There was only a mild case of surprise when she found that the dull orange glow of the nano-arrays had taken on a malevolent crimson hue and had ceased their endless churning.

Pale light danced across the floor for a moment, flickering into and out of existence as something tried to take form. Sae, in her fascination, pushed her concerned crewmates away and gestured for them to watch. From the ground up it refined itself, appearing first as a dull blur of pale colour before being defined by a memory that grew sharper with every passing moment.

At first, it seemed similar to what David had been. But where his form had been a strange mix of Human and Quarian features, this one was wholly human. Likewise, the vibrant red was replaced by writhing mixture of white and dull grey, though made of light as they were the shapes still illuminated the gloom of the Tomb.

Except for the eyes, which were a pair of shining blue that she instantly recognized.

"Shepard." She whispered quietly, and without quite knowing why she felt herself feeling immensely better.

The hologram blinked, or seemed to at least, before focussing on them.

Sae felt her stomach drop as the hologram paused only for a moment when it spotted her before moving on her comrades.

"Yes," It said eventually, still watching them. It was the same voice Sae had heard when surrounded by the inky blackness, though now it sounded distant. As if it were remembering his name for the first time. Blue eyes narrowed for a moment on them before softening, a faint smile on its shimmering lips. "That's who I am."

For the first time in centuries, the ship that had been the _Nietzsche_ was once again under the control of a single entity. The sleeper was awake once more after more than three hundred years of dreams.

"I am the Shepherd."

**

* * *

**

**AN:** Something strange happened earlier this week. My inner misanthropist (who long ago supplanted my inner child. Supplanted it with a machete.) was calm, and for a while I felt no urge to wound my fellow man. I was at peace.

And then it snowed, people started playing Christmas songs incessantly and being inordinately jolly, and then I remembered I have exams soon.

And _that_, dear children, is why I kill people. Fictional ones, anyways.

By the way, I have exams soon. Fun stuff! So, until maybe the middle of December I may or may not meet the normal deadline as I try desperately to _not_ suck at tests. I'll try my damndest to keep up the good work, but I prioritize not failing spectacularly.

Because I am weird like that.

Lastly, y'know that batshit crazy part towards the middle/end? Yeah, that's _supposed_ to make you go 'wtf'. So if you did, then I can consider it a job well done. If you're annoyed that I relegated almost half of the chatacters either to background or exposition, then you're not alone. I too am disappointed in myself, but there really wasn't enough time for everyone to step into the spotlight while at the same time providing sufficient exposition/explanation and plot development.


	11. Chapter 10

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this. Nor am I Friedrich Nietzsche, and so cannot lay claim to this chapter's title.** I own the _world,_ mother-loving spawn of daughters! _It just doesn't know it yet_.

**2: You know what you should do? Review. **Because I need validation, or the walls of my fragile world come crashing down around me. (And like every truly lazy animal, I _hate_ loud noises. They galvanize me out of my happy state of sloth.)

3: I apologize profusely for the word Encomium, which I had no idea even existed before Janizary suggested it to me. Also, it was a bugger to work in.

Now, let's drop some night into your shiny day.

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter X: God Is Dead**

**

* * *

**

Prior to taking this mission Han'Maani Vas Jezebel would never have suspected that something as mundane and harmless as the holographic manifestation of a synthetic mind would ever unnerve him. What was there to be afraid of, after all? It was just a complicated light show, a shape from which an otherwise alien will could be recognized by.

But every time the blue eyes of Shepard hovered on him he felt an inexplicable shiver of fear run up his spine and wished he was anywhere but there. Maybe it was the knowledge that it thought it was a man that did it, like some kind nightmarish Pinocchio. (Han had never heard the ancient human fairy-tale, but if he had then would likely have commented that it was no great mystery why humans grew up to be so strange. And that it was an apt comparison.) Or maybe it was the way Sae seemed to spend every spare moment looking at it, a faraway look on her face that made him at once jealous and wishful. It certainly didn't help that she seemed to be a bit... flustered whenever the hologram looked at her.

It wasn't as if it even _did_ much beyond merely watching them in a way that hinted mild bemusement as they explained their situation to it. Well, as Lien explained it.

He was busy fussing over Sae, though the woman didn't seem to notice in the slightest. He'd even surreptitiously tried to cop a feel, and had felt all kinds of dirty when she hadn't react in the slightest.

"So what you're saying is you want me to help you out." He said at last, his face a mask of disinterest. "Help you fight against... Who, exactly? You've been very good at not saying."

Han watched as Lien averted her gaze as it stared unblinkingly at her.

"Well, er," Lien started, then stopped. Obviously what she was about to say made her feel more than little bit nervous. "Everyone, really. The Sol Concord, the Rannochian Combine, the Children of Spore and Song, the Khar'Shan-Palaven Alliance, the-"

"Yes, I begin to see why you might need help." Shepard interrupted, clearly more than a little amused at this. "Quite a list. You people are even better at making enemies than I was."

Lien drew herself up, indignation showing on her face.

"We only wanted to be left alone!" She protested angrily, before seeming to remember herself and adopted a more calm tone. "Things just got out of hand."

"Sounds like it." The hologram said, smirking slightly.

"The Legions said you'd help us." Sae interjected quietly, almost as if she were embarrassed to bring it up. "They said they helped you once."

That brought the blue eyes back to bear on the woman, and Han bristled silently when he felt the woman his arms tense.

"Legions?" He asked, quirking his head to the side. "I don't know any- Wait."

His voice lost all traces of amusement as recognition dawned.

"You mean the Geth, yes?" He asked.

"They don't like to be called that, but yes." Sae answered.

"Huh. So there's more than one now." He said slowly, as if considering the concept for the first time. "Interesting."

"They said-"

"I heard you the first time, girl." Shepard said harshly, cutting her off midstream.

"So you'll help us, then?" Sae said, and Han tried desperately to convince himself that she only sounded so hopeful because she was worried for their people.

The hologram snorted derisively, folding its arms in a manner eerily similar to the way Sahi would.

"Why should I?" He demanded, and Han shuddered slightly at the sudden shift in tone. It had gone from calm to anger so quickly, and the last thing he wanted to contemplate was a moody AI-thing. "So that a few centuries from now I can help clean up yet another mess? No. I'm done with that."

"What?"

That took everyone by surprise.

This was _not_ how things were supposed to go. They'd travelled far from their homes in search of the shi- _him_, braved the depths of the ship and then restored him. There was such a thing as _gratitude_, after all!

"B, but we brought you back." Lien protested, giving voice to the disappointment at this.

"Yes, to fight a war for you." He retorted hotly. "Selfish reasoning, really."

"Selfish?" Lien sputtered out, her eyes wide. "Listen to me, you great big lightshow-"

"No, _you_ listen." This was said as it idly lifted a hand.

Each of them rose in the air sharply, the mass effect fields suddenly shifting with little warning. Each of them made their respective noises of surprise or protest even as the hologram regarded them with a coolly indifferent gaze.

"I will _not_ be ordered around by the likes of you." He said with vehemence, bright blue eyes glaring at them. "I killed Saren Arterius, I destroyed the collectors, I fought the Reapers and I _won_. Unless your situation threatens to destroy all sentient life, I don't see why I should care. I've already given more than enough."

The conviction of the words worried Han more than a little bit, as if he was prepared to simply let them all die. As if he didn't care at all about them. The swiftness in which he had gone from amusement to anger was more than a little worrying as well, but he supposed it was only to be expected. Synthetic beings processed things more quickly than organics could, so it would follow that what seemed like a mood-swing to him was actually just a faster reaction.

It was still frightening to see, though. AIs weren't supposed to be so emotive.

He had been prepared to accept that Sahi and her brothers were the exception, as developing alone had to have yielded something far different from what normal synthetic entities were like. But Shepard, or 'the' Shepard, had to have come into being long before the three of them for them to regard him as their father. And _that_ was a thought he didn't even want to begin thinking about. AIs spawning? At least Geth had the decency to call them copies.

Han watched the hologram carefully as it allowed its hand to drop, though the three of them remained weightless.

"My only concern in this matter is this: Will you help _me_, if I help you?"

The three of them could only stare for a moment, trying to understand what it had just said. And then Lien gave voice to the silent question that echoed inside their own minds.

"What could you need? You're a sh-"

"_What I am is of no concern_." He warned sternly, cutting her off abruptly. "What I want is."

"And what do you want?" Han found himself asking, and almost kicked himself for doing so.

The hologram remained impassive for a moment as it considered its response. Then it smiled, like the sun dawning on the horizon. The three of them were dropped unceremoniously to the ground with that, each of them once again giving voice to their surprise in a variety of ways as they landed.

"Tali'Zorah." It said slowly, as if savoring the sound of the name. "Bring her back to me, and I'll fight for you."

An awkward silence set in as the three quarians tried to begin to understand what

"Is she... like you?" Sae asked after a while, trying carefully not to insinuate anything that might offend the biotics-wielding ship.

The smile faltered for a moment before vanishing completely.

"No, she's like _you_." He answered, annoyance plain in his voice.

"Wouldn't she be..." Lien began, then faltered as she struggled to find the words.

Han'Maani frowned, wondering what exactly the thing in front of them was thinking. Whoever Tali'Zorah might be otherwise, there was little hope of her being alive unless she was an Asari or Krogan with a very strange name. If he knew how long he had been dormant, he had to know that she had died.

"Dust?" He suggested, and immediately regretted it.

Shepard smiled mirthlessly as he answered, the blue gimlets of eyes boring into him like a physical force.

"Yes, she rotted away in a carefully controlled environment devoid of microbes." He agreed, the sarcasm dipping from his voice. "Because decomposition is like magic."

"He's right." Sae said with a little bit of a falter in her voice. "If the body remained on the ship, then the circulated air and lack of microbes would have led to the body becoming severely desiccated at worst, but well preserved never the less."

"Thank you." Shepard said, looking at her as if for the first time. It's holographic face frowned ever so slightly as he scrutinized her carefully. "You look _very_ familiar. Have I seen you before?"

"I, er, was the one who brought you back."

The hologram stood perfectly still for a moment, it's brows furrowed in concentration.

"So, you're the girl in my-"

"Yes."

"But we-"

"Yes."

"Even Rann-"

"_Yes._" Sae said loudly and deliberately, a blush blooming across her cheeks.

"Oh." It said stiffly, then pointedly looked away from her. "Never mind then."

The hologram turned back to face Lien, its face carefully inscrutable.

"So? Do you accept my terms?"

"Uh," The woman hesitated in the face of the hologram's attention, "I don't think I can speak for-"

"Then tell me who can, and where I can find them." Shepard promptly commanded.

Lien cast a desperate glace to Han, hoping for some kind of moral support.

With a sigh of resignation the lone male of the trio dredged the information out of his memory. It wasn't hard, and he suspected the only reason Lien had forgotten was because of her acute technical ineptitude.

"The Second Fleet is currently in the Nemean Abyss, in the Nessian Shroud. Tracking will be difficult there, which is why-"

"When you say 'Second Fleet', do you mean a roving fleet that is the only home your people know?" Shepard suddenly demanded, his brows furrowed in what looked like anger.

"Er, yes?" Han hesitantly confirmed, unsure where this was going.

"Oh god _damn it_!" He cursed loudly. "What was the _point_ of all that work if a few centuries later your right back where you were?"

The three of them exchanged looks of confusion and worry, wondering what exactly the man was talking about.

"What?"

"I wasn't talking to you." He told them, still a little irritated. With an errant flick of his hand some schematics blazed into existence in front of them. "Follow this route. It will take you to the bridge. Once you're there, strap yourselves in. We'll be moving fast, and things get a bit strange when that happens."

**

* * *

**

The ship lurched, or seemed to, as the mass effect fields warped and shifted around them. Her mind shut down as it tried to ward off the sickness that was building up in her as she felt herself pulled from a different direction with varying degrees of strength. At times she felt herself crushed against the restraints that kept her from being thrown around the room.

But one look out the window convinced Sae it was all worth it. Their surroundings was a storm of biotic charge and distortion of mass effect. It was a maelstrom of forces that she was not entirely sure she wholly understood. On one level, she knew that it was just the normal effects of using a mass effect relay.

On quite another level, one that still worried her, she knew that Shepard had never bothered reaching a relay.

He'd simply begun manipulating the mass effect fields and found, much to his surprise, that there didn't seem to be much of an upper limit on how powerful a field he could create.

And then the stars were streaking lines of light as they moved faster than light.

The amount of _power_ that alluded to, the ability to make a ship the size of a _dreadnought_ break the laws of physics with a thought, was terrifying. What would happen if Shepard - or the Shepherd, whatever he called himself, decided to weaponize that ability?

She began to realize why the Legions believed that a single ship could help their people end the war against the Second Fleet.

There was, however, a niggling doubt in the back of her mind, however. Why had nobody ever considered the possibility before? Biotics were already potent adversaries all on their own, surely scaling upwards had occurred to _somebody_?

Maybe manipulation on this scale simply wasn't possible for a synthetic mind. Or maybe Shepard really _was_ different from an AI, possessing some quality that granted him enhanced ability.

It was unlikely that she would ever know unless she was allowed to study the ship further, and Shepard as well.

She tried in vain to stop the blush from forming on her cheeks as she involuntarily remembered their brief, confusing encounter.

They were his memories, she knew. And, in some hazy part of her mind, she recognized that they weren't hers. That the woman Shepard remembered in that dreamlike state had not been her, but Tali. That did not stop her from feeling... Somewhat attached to the memory. It was unique, something she'd never experienced before. And, though she would never admit it to anyone unless forced, one she would be happy to repeat.

All too soon they dropped out of FTL and were surrounded by the blood-red and golds of the Nessian Shroud.

"Huh, that's pretty." Shepard remarked idly. "And... There, found your friends. Anything you want to say to them before we get there?"

Sae found herself wondering, involuntarily, what would happen if the Admirals refused to agree to what Shepard demanded. He hardly seemed to be the most stable of individuals, after all.

She looked to her side, trying to convey the question to Lien without giving voice to it.

Thankfully she was spared any further efforts by the Voice of Legion.

The collective consciousness of the many programs petitioned her for the use of her voice, to speak to Shepard without accessing his systems. She hesitated only for a moment before she opened her other half to them, allowing them to access her body through her implants. Their presence became a subtle one, somewhere just on the edge of her awareness. It was somewhat akin to feeling them look at her from behind, just where she couldn't see them. The sensation was slightly unnerving to those who were experiencing it for the first time, but Sae had done it many times before.

"Shepard Commander." The Voice of Legion said through her mouth. "This platform will temporarily act as our voice for the purposes of this conversation."

Han and Lien spared her only a brief glance, though not much of one since they had seen something like this happen before. They were, instead, much more interested in seeing how their ship/person that had brought them here would react to such a thing.

Shepard appeared before them in a flash of light, blue eyes already at full glare.

"Legion?" He half-asked, half-demanded.

"Yes." They answered, emoting none of the uncertainty that Sae could almost convince herself they felt. It was subtle, but it was there. She was certain of it.

"Why are you talking through... Whatever her name is?"

Sae felt her blood heat up slightly that the man would have such an indifferent opinion of her even knowing that she had brought him back from the grave, which was a strange sensation when accompanied with the numbing feeling of sharing her body with Legion. The synthetic part of her, the part through which Legion was connected to her, tried to calm her down with logical reasoning. She hadn't met him too long ago, she hadn't introduced herself, Shepard was... Different.

But some unreasoning part of her insisted that the memories they'd shared should have- But no, that was wrong. She forced herself to remember that they _weren't_ her memories. They were his.

Sensing that she had calmed down somewhat, Legion exerted control over her body once more to speak.

"We are unable to access your systems." They answered. "This platform has agreed to act as an intermediary."

"She has a name, you know." Shepard said reproachfully.

"Yes. Sae'Sorel Vas Neleros. We are aware."

The hologram stared at Sae for a long time, its ethereal form inscrutable. The blue eyes bore into her like gimlets as he simply watched her, looking for something. Finally, he shrugged.

"Fine." He said after what seemed far longer than it probably was. "What do you want to talk about?"

"We have come on behalf of Admiral Mira'Shaan Vas Melas and the Admiralty Board to seek your aid in our-"

"Yes, I know _that_ part, thank you." Shepard interrupted. "And I'll agree, on one condition."

Even as distantly connected to the Legions as she was, Sae could feel their slighty confusion at this. She couldn't tell why, as she was certain that even if she had an even more potent connection established she would not wholly understand them due to the alien nature of their thoughts. Perhaps they weren't too sure what to make of the fact that Shepard had _demands_ of all things.

"I want you to bring Tali back."

The distant feeling of confusion was instantly quelled in that moment, replaced by instead by... Something else. She didn't know what it was, had never felt it from the Legions before. Perhaps it was a part of what separated the Legions from the Geth?

"We agree." Legion said through her, and she was somewhat surprised. Such a quick answer was rare, especially on a matter so important. "Medical vessel _Ilikad_ will be prepared to perform the operations necessary."

The hologram sagged visibly in relief, a weary grin appearing on his lips.

"Thanks, Legion." He said, and for a moment Sae was surprised at the... ease in his voice. She hadn't realized before just how high-strung he'd been before, but she supposed that was only to be expected. He'd only been revived a few moments before, thrust awkwardly into a galaxy he was no longer familiar with. "You don't know what this means to me."

"We concede this might be so." Sae could feel the Legions shift slightly, their minds slightly uneasy. "We must warn you, however, that her neural pathways may have degenerated. It is unlikely that-"

"I know." Shepard interrupted yet again. "I've already thought about it. If that turns out to be true, then I can help her. I can give back _some_ of her. Maybe it will be enough."

The Legions were filled with... The only word Sae had for it was dread. But it was only an approximate for what the Legions were going through at the moment. They didn't feel fear, not as she knew it. But they _were_ able to quickly compute and predict the various horrible scenarios that could crop up should things progress in a certain manner. And what most of them were beginning to point out that that the likely of something _bad_ happening far outweighed the likely of something good.

"We will defer to your judgment." The Legions eventually answered. "We will depart and prepare the _Ilikad_ for her arrival."

Shepard nodded at this, flashing a bright smile.

"Thanks Legion."

And with that Sae felt the Legions depart from her consciousness, forcing her to cough from discomfort. The Legions were notoriously bad at talking through organics.

"So you'll help us?" She asked, her voice rasping slightly.

Shepard smiled, and for the first time he seemed genuinely happy. The smile was infectious, as she seemed to be smiling as well.

"Of course." He answered, as if there was no other possible outcome.

**

* * *

**

The _Ilikad_ was one of the most important ships in the Second Fleet, as it was where they mass produced the Lazarus Implants from which they were able to procure most of their trading goods from. Anybody interested in circumventing death either went to Rannoch, where they would likely spend years being probed and questioned by the officials before they were begrudgingly allowed to even make a request, or they came to the Second Fleet where things were a great deal more fluid. Anybody with something the exiles might want or need could, if they had enough of it, get as many of implants as they needed.

It was the primary reason so many groups wanted the Second Fleet destroyed. After all, nobody was interested in letting the more unsavory aspects of the galaxy cheat death. That just meant more of the worst that sapient life had to offer building up.

So when the Legions volunteered the _Ilikad_ to receive the body of a single woman, the Second Fleet was more than a little perplexed. It was only when the crew of the ship, who almost to a man had _some_ kind of medical training, became of the full extent of the work they would be doing that they realized why this would be necessary. After all, restoring a recently killed person to life was one thing. That could be taken care of in a matter of days, everything was still fresh.

The body of Tali'Zorah Vas Nedas was over three hundred years old. There wasn't a single organ in her body that _hadn't_ been somehow affected by the duration, but thankfully most of the damage would be easy to repair.

At least, that was what they told Shepard. Or, as days drew on and people became more aware that they weren't doing this for a person so much as a ship, the Shepherd.

The Second Fleet was unsure what to make of that, really. From what the Legions had told them, most had been expecting a ship containing a cargo of either extreme value or incredible danger. A sentient ship was something else entirely. Some had called for its dismantlement, claiming they could use its materials more effectively in a ship of more modern construction. _That_ idea had been swiftly dismissed when they all realized just how powerful its manipulation of the mass effects fields could be, as well as its apparent ability to vanish from most obvious means of detection with surprising ease.

And since the ship's profile and structure seemed to be vastly different from what the Legions had initially described, most were prepared to accept the new name with little protest. After all, the _Nietzsche_ had been an ancient carrier ship while the _Shepherd_ was so much more than that.

Nobody could really banish the disquiet they all felt when they looked out a viewing port and they saw the featureless black shape of the _Shepherd_, passing slowly along the fringe of their vessels like some kind of spectral visage of a real ship. It certainly didn't help to remember that there was only one thinking entity inside that formless ghost, and it was the ship itself.

Sae found herself staring out at it more often than she might have liked to admit, at times even going so far as to follow its course by moving from room to room of the _Neleros_. She was fascinated by it, him, and couldn't help herself from idly staring out towards the silhouette whenever she let her mind drift.

With some annoyance she realized that she'd done it again, and forced herself to look away from the window with some reluctance. Eventually, she thought better of it and pressed a button that would slide a metal shielding over the thick glass that would prevent her from being tempted. With that done, she resolved herself to finishing the mission report she'd been putting off for so long.

Her father had already received a pair from Han and Lien, and apparently what they'd told him had been enough to make him pester her for details. She was the only one who had any real insight into Shepard beyond the Legions, and they were hardly the most forthcoming on the matter.

And so it was that she continued dictating the events that had led to her touching the mind of the Shepherd, trying for hours on end to make some sense of what she remembered. It was difficult for her, considering that dwelling on those thoughts simply forced her to think more of Shepard and what he might think of her and-

She stopped her just as it reached for the button that would slide the barrier back once again. She frowned in frustration at this as she leaned back, trying to order her thoughts.

Everything had just become so strange since that encounter. Everything was different.

With a sigh she left her chair, and paused for a moment when she saw the Legion recharging itself in the corner. A pause that brought with it a ray of inspiration, a thought she had not considered before.

The Legions had known Shepard even before his... Transformation. That's what they said, in any case. And even if she was mistaken, they'd at _least_ fought in the Reaper War. They would be able to tell her _something_.

"Legion?" She asked quietly, feeling almost ashamed for what she was about to do.

The robotic platform for the Legions instantly reacted to her query, its heard perking up at the sound and its cyclopean eye riveting itself on her and focusing.

"Creator Sae'Sorel."

She hesitated for a moment, wondering if perhaps this was the right thing to do. But then again, why wouldn't it be? Shepard hadn't said anything to suggest he would be adverse to someone learning more about him, and it would certainly be enlightening. It might also help her to decipher what she'd seen.

"Can you tell me about Shepard?"

The Legion was silent, watching her. She knew that it would be attempting to build consensus with the rest of its kind even as it weighed the various pros and cons of indulging her request. But a moment later it agreed to her request.

She spent the next few hours listening raptly to the AI's recounting of the Reaper War, marveling at how different it was from the account she'd been taught as a child. There was no speculation in Legion's voice, no doubt. There was only the factual recitation of events that she knew were either first or second hand retellings.

She learned of Shepard's genocide of the Collectors, and learned the names of those involved. She was mildly surprised to learn that Urdnot Grunt had been involved, though she dimly recalled that the Krogans featured prominently in almost all recounting of the war. She simply hadn't thought he'd been alive back then, but then again it made sense. He'd been a participant in the most important wars in recorded history, so of course that would help form him for the almost legendary reputation he'd built for himself since then.

She was told of the frenzied efforts to evacuate Palaven as Shepard and his ship fought against the Reapers in orbit, buying as much time as possible. The machine related the death of Garrus Vakarian, a self-proclaimed 'bad Turian' dying in defense of his people and screaming defiance even as a Reaper crushed him with its death-throes.

She heard of the disastrous second assault of the Citadel, where a trio of Reapers appeared without warning while the Hierarchy burned and destroyed the hub of galactic society in an effort to crush the resistance, and the efforts Shepard went through to rally the remnants of that selfsame society into a single forces under his command. And then, when he'd gathered all that he could from Citadel space, he did the same for those he could outside their influence. Krogans, Quarians, Rachni and Geth had all flocked to his banner as he offered each of them a better future. (Or, in some cases, the prospect of _having_ a future.)

The idea of almost every major galactic power allying together was a foreign one to her, and but the Citadel had still been around, at least in memory, to them. Most were already united in manner or other, they simply needed to be galvanized into action and directed. Shepard had provided that galvanizing force and, had he survived the battle afterwards, would likely have been the architect of peace afterwards that the galaxy so greatly needed.

But that didn't happen. Shepard had been burnt to cinders when a fuel line exploded just as he was making his escape.

And then Tali brought him back in his current form.

Sae began to realize just how much the dead woman must mean to him with that, as she listened to Legion explain the scale of what Tali'Zorah had done to accomplish that feat. She'd forsaken her own people for him, made herself an enemy of her previous allies just for the chance of restoring him. And then, once she realized that she had only been partially successful, she'd stayed with him. She hadn't cared that he had become... Alien to her.

And imagine her surprise when the Legions expressed that they had once been hopeful that the two would 'stabilize' one another, the closest she'd ever heard them coming to outright playing matchmaker with anybody, and actually creating a primitive platform through which the two could interact implicitly for their use.

She hadn't realized before just how much of the history of her people had been... Modified, in some form or other. Most of the accounts she'd been told growing up had told of a nameless young quarian leading the fight, first presenting the evidence that would lead to the defeat of Saren and then escalating her efforts as time wore on, only to fall victim to insanity in the final moments of victory. It was one of those funny details that most people forgot, namely that that woman had actually been a _person_ and not just a name to learn, that really made her think about it the situation.

She knew that the Legion's account of the war was accurate. How couldn't it be? They'd _been_ there, fighting in the heart of it all. She wondered briefly if the inaccuracies cropped up _all_ of those who'd shared the victory of the Reapers, or if it was just their own. It seemed likely that it was so. After all, everyone wanted to believe that their own people were the best in the galaxy.

And the more she thought about, the more interested she became about the woman Tali'Zorah.

And so she asked Legion about her.

The legion regaled her with a brief encomium of the woman and her deeds.

"Creator Tali'Zorah Vas Nedas was the only Quarian member of the Normandy crew. met Shepard Commander during the fight to stop the Rogue Spectre Saren Arterius, the heretic Geth and the Reaper known as Sovereign, or Nazara. Considered one of the three great heroes of the Reaper War, along with Shepard Commander and Garrus Vakarian. Returned to her people the first death of Shepard Commander with information that would prove vital to the reconciliation of the Creators and the Geth. Rejoined the Commander's cause when he returned, and aided in the destruction of the Collectors, was a motivating force for the reclamation of Rannoch and the formation of the Rannochian Combine. Exiled from the Migrant Fleet when she attacked the _SSV Nietzsche_ with the aid of Cerberus or Hecate."

Sae raised an eyebrow at this, a wry smile on his lips.

"Cerberus _or_ Hecate?" She asked, resisting the urge to smile. "Aren't you _sure_?"

The Legion gave an impressive imitation of a shrug, almost flawless mimicry of organic body language.

"The Geth collected evidence that could corroborate both organizations' involvement. Without further information we cannot confirm or deny the involvement of either party." Legion responded, almost reproachfully. They did not like to be teased like this.

Sae frowned at that, wondering what exactly it could mean if _both_ Cerberus and Hecate had been involved in some way. The two were purportedly rivals and enemies, both vying for the destruction of the other. What exactly had happened on that day?

"What exactly-" But whatever she was about to say was cut off as the _Neleros_ suddenly shook violently. She stabled herself against herself against the window, a free hand slapping down on the shutter control so she could see out into the nebula. "What is going on out there?"

The flaps around Legion's eye flared slightly as it conversed with the others before answering her, its voice tainted by the urgency of the situation.

"We are under attack." It informed her.

But Sae wasn't listening, instead staring out at the black spot out in a sea of red that was surging towards them with a speed she could only imagine, its shrouded form already crackling biotic charge. Whatever was out there, it would soon regret trying to hurt them.

**

* * *

**

**AN: **You can't say I didn't warn you. This chapter is late because of the potent time-consuming cocktail of exams (screw you, education), work (to _anyone_ who enjoys the Nordic dish known as lutfisk: You people make me cry) and my inability to focus on one project at a time (screw you, brain). Next update will hopefully be up sometime around Christmas if I can be stopped from getting too much into the holiday spirit. Which is unlikely, unless I somehow manage to I get a regular dose of spirits.

Go me!

On a side note, I do not like this chapter. At all. Having to stare at it for hours on end before deciding I can't add on to it probably has something to do with it, though. I hate being less than inspired.


	12. Chapter 11

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this.** Well, not in _money_, anyways. Praise is a decent enough substitute.

**2:** Y'know what would be awesome to give me? A sack of money. **Barring that, you know what else you could give? A review.**

3: I apologize for my use of French. It really is uncalled for, but there just isn't a good corresponding word/phrase in English. Also, I may or may not have watched **Ergo Proxy** a while back and had the phrase on my mind ever since. I admit to nothing.

You have a soul, and I want to _break_ it.

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter XI: Raison D'être**

* * *

Shepard was amongst the Second Fleet's assailants like an angry thunder god, the charge of his drive core crackling around him as he moved with a speed that defied logic. He was an ominous black shape slashing through their formations, leaving only catastrophic destruction in his passing. Most only saw him as a massive, mobile gravimetric distortion, and then only briefly before their hulls were ripped apart in a storm of biotic energy. He was like a nightmare given flesh, a faceless adversary that tore through hulls designed to withstand mass drivers like it was made of wet tissue paper.

Shepard revelled in his power, though it worried him that he would draw such pleasure from it. His skill with biotics was one of the few things that had remained unchanged for him, a remnant from his previous life. Sure, it had taken some time for him to apply them to his new form, but that was in the past. When he was working the fields, he felt like his old self again, with four limbs and five senses and all the nigh-forgotten pleasures of having a real body. He could sympathize now just how much Tali must have wanted to get out of her suit to spend her time with him, and how she had grown to hate it even as she depended on it for survival. The constant numbness where his body should be was worrying if he dwelled too long on the fact, and then there was also the complete inability physically move. It was only when he wielded his biotics that he could completely forget this and return to a state of mind in which he wasn't a disembodied mind that inhabited the very _walls_ of a nightmarish ghost-ship.

And, if he distanced himself from the fact that he was essentially killing shiploads of people at a time, it was quite entertaining to rip the hull off a ship and watch the contents spill out into vacuum. It was somewhat akin to the games he would play as a child, building a small city of toys and then imagining himself to be some titanic monster, toppling them all as he went along. That it made him think of better times served only to make him focus less on the grisly reality of what he was doing.

It wasn't that he didn't know, he just didn't care. It was hard to. He didn't even know who these people were, let alone what their motivations might be or even what they might be like when not attacking the fragile existence of isolated fleets. They were just faceless aggressors to him, things that needed to be destroyed if he was to be reunited with Tali.

That too, was liberation of a kind. It was _very_ hard for him to feel bad about anything with that goal in mind. After all, he'd committed genocide twice, first with the Collectors and then with the Reapers, for her. These annoyances hardly presented much of a moral dilemma.

He idly threw up a barrier against a hail of rail drivers, and made a mental note not to get too close to these ships. His biotics could do little against the projected energy, and any damage to the hull risked destroying a part of his neural network. He did not relish the notion of having segments of his mind suddenly blasted away into space. He was already fragmented more than enough as it was. And as difficult as it was for the arrays to spot him, occasionally he simply got too close and provoked a movement-reaction from them.

Allowing himself to drift away from their formation, he magnified the gravity of several ships in random directions, amusing himself in the way it caused their drive cores to try and compensate. But he soon tired of that, and instead increased the gravity far beyond anything they would be able to resist. He couldn't see it, but the hulls of the ships warped and buckled under the force, crumpling inwards. Even if he had, he probably wouldn't have wanted to linger too long on just how the force he'd applied would affect less sturdy materials like flesh and bone.

Instead he simply moved on to the other ships, wrapping his form in layers upon layers of mass effect fields to make his movements easier. He'd finish them off once he was certain they couldn't hurt him with their crude fumblings.

* * *

Commander Jamal Torsen of the Sol Accord had many nightmares. It was a part of who he was, and over his many years of life he'd gotten used to suddenly waking up with a gasp and bellow of fear halfway out of his mouth before realizing it had all been a dream.

His superiors had more than once suggested he go into therapy for it, at the very least take some medication. But Jamal was convinced that there was no better way to wake up than with the memory of some grisly but quickly fading fate firmly lodged in his mind. For one thing, it really motivated him not to go back to sleep, and the rest of the day seemed pleasant in comparison. After all, when you wake up after being devoured by a giant, dancing pickle with the face of his girlfriend even a day of filling out forms seemed like an improvement.

So when his communications officer reported, with a steadily more panicked voice, that they were losing contact with their allies one by one in rapid succession and a simple glance into the deep void provided terrifying images of twisted and mangled ships without a single insight into what might have done such a thing, Jamal began to wonder if he had somehow drifted asleep again without knowing it. It would certainly have explained a lot.

But no, that wasn't nearly enough to wake him up it seemed. Next came a terrified report that _something_ was moving with them, physically tearing ships apart with biotics. The notion of a biotic that powerful was a sobering thought all on its own. How could _anything_ be that powerful? Surely it had to be wrong.

But the engineering level confirmed the report, expanding upon it by revealing that there was fleet-wide gravimetric distortion. Jamal had only a vague idea what that meant, but he suspected that it was _bad_ considering the amount of the general panicked tone of the head of engineering. Jamal took it for granted that when the person whose job it was to know how to look at a chart of numbers or graphic interpretations of those numbers and draw some kind of meaning from them was worried, it was time for him to start wishing he was somewhere else.

And, at last, someone spotted _it_.

_It_ was some kind of dreadnought, the size and shape impossible to determine. The only thing they could see was a vague outline and what looked like an almost lethal build-up of charge striking out at the dust particles around it. And the only reason they'd spotted it was because it had passed right by the cockpit and caused their pilot to freak out completely.

Being killed by some kind of ghost-ship had never been one of his nightmares before, but he didn't want to underestimate the creativity of his subconscious.

He wished he could order a retreat and get out of there in one piece. Dream or not, he had no great wish to find out what exactly happened to the ships that had dropped out of contact.

But alas, he had orders.

Damned stupid ones, too. Well, no. That was unfair. If everything had gone according to plan, there would have been precious little to stand between his fleet and their prize. But no, everything had gone to hell, but he _still_ had to do it.

It wasn't as if he particularly _cared_ about what happened to the freaks either. Nobody did, for the most part. They, at least, had the decency to leave people alone. That much could not be said for his immediate superiors.

Sometimes he suspected that the whole reason the matter had gotten blown so far out of proportion was for the simple reason that everybody wanted to know how the damnable Quarians had managed to make the implants so damned cheap. Even the Sol Accord couldn't keep up with the amount this tiny fleet in the ass-end of the galaxy managed to churn out, and they remained prohibitively expensive for even the species that had first developed the technology. It was a blow to their pride, to be forcibly reminded that these _outcasts_ were better at something than the Accord. Nobody liked being second best.

With a quiet sigh the commander of the ship pushed such thoughts out of his mind, resolving instead to finish the mission and get back to his busy schedule of not getting killed.

"Spread the message to keep closing on our primary target." He ordered calmly, and that too was an effect from his chronic nightmares: It was hard for him to get too impassioned about anything when he was in a constant state of mild tiredness, and it was difficult to get much rest out of a few hours of sleep each day. "Once it's taken out, we run."

_That_ made people a little less uneasy, at least.

"Aye, sir." The communications officer saluted quickly, and began relaying the mssage to any who would listen.

Jamal leaned back and waited patiently to either wake up, get done and run, or die. It didn't turn out to be a very long wait.

* * *

Sae'Sorel Vas Neleros watched with a small grin as Shepard moved from ship to ship and tore them apart with a power that she had only guessed at before. It was terrible of her to take any sort of pleasure from the deaths of so many people, but she had a hard time feeling it. They'd come to try and destroy or, much more likely, enslave them. They were hardly deserving of an overabundance of mercy.

But there was also something to be said for watching their formations break with the occasional flash of light as a fuel line ruptured cataclysmically, bathing the interior of their ships in fire before the ship's drive core ceased functioning and the their remaining oxygen vanished into the void.

But she soon forgot her enjoyment for the carnage when the ships suddenly broke formation, each one making a last ditch effort to reach the Second Fleet and wreak as much havoc as possible. Shepard chased them, of course but there were still so many of them spread far enough apart to make it difficult even for him to reach them all before they reached their goal. The guilty pleasure she felt soon turned to mute horror as she realized this and began to wonder what they would target first. Could the Fleet's own defences scramble fast enough to intercept them before they managed to target anything? Probably not, as it had only been a few minutes since the battle had begun.

Glumly, she noted duly that the sleek, angular shape of Sol Accord frigates. How _they_ had managed to track them back here was a mystery, as they'd only relocated a few days ago after a different attack from the Combine, one that had been devastating enough to force them into the very fringes of the Nemean Abyss. It had been severe enough that the Legions had finally revealed the location of Shepard, and now here they were, helpless once more.

It did not take long for the first ship to get into firing range and bring its main weapons into play. It took only a moment for Sae to calculate the ship's position and the possible attacks vectors, and from there she could easily spot its target.

The _Ilikad_. It was the obvious, but the most terrible target. They would strike at their lifeline, the one commodity that allowed them to operate independently. Without the _Ilikad_ they would likely be forced to find someone to support their fleet, likely one of the many governments that had taken to attacking them over the years. It would not be outright enslavement, as she had feared, but a slow subjugation that would be all the more terrible for its legitimacy. Slaves could be liberated, after all.

Not only that, but it also attended to their wounded and-

Sae froze as she remembered just who else was there. Tali'Zorah, the sole reason Shepard had agreed to help them in the first place. And he hardly seemed like the kind of person who would hang around and protect them without a reason. Or... Well, what _would_ he do without Tali?

She knew what he felt for the woman. She was the one thing that drove him, someone he would do anything for. If she was gone forever...

She looked away from the frigates, and instead at the shadowy dreadnaught that even now sped to cross the distance. She couldn't help shuddering in silent anxiety for what was about to happen.

* * *

Shepard cursed himself for an idiot when he realized he couldn't reach all of the little nuisances in time to stop them, and then he went into apoplectic rage when he realized just what they were attacking. He could only watch helplessly as the tiny things blasted pillars of molten steel into the _Ilikad_.

He recognized the familiar corona of destruction as one similar to what the _Normandy _had once used, though he could not for the life of him fathom why anybody would _still_ be using a three hundred year old weapon. He would have hoped that in his centuries long absence that things would have changed more. That the strangely familiar shapes of the Second Fleet was simply the result of their owner's exile, and not technological stagnation. But no, it seemed that it was more than simple exile. It seemed that even now, the people of the galaxy persisted in the legacy of the Reapers, allowing themselves to be guided along by the ancient machines' lines of thought.

These would be thoughts he had later, though. At the moment all he could think of was _stopping_ them from destroying the medical vessel, how to save Tali. He reached out into space with his biotics, hoping he could somehow stop the projectiles in time. But the onslaught was unstoppable, and so he was forced to watch as the radiant blast of metal slammed into the slow, defenceless ship. It was the first of several such blows, a terrible rain of devastation that soon left the ship a lifeless wreck.

There is no sound in space, but inside the empty halls of the ship he lived in the sound of anguished pain was a continuous, deafening dirge. Shepard had lost the only thing that mattered to him anymore, and the pain of it was worse than the first time he had known it for the knowledge that there would be no revival, no hope to have her back.

She was gone forever.

Blinded by his fury, he reached out instead towards the offending ship and encased it in his power, grasping it firmly with his biotics. And then, when he was certain that nothing within could possibly resist, he _twisted_ it.

* * *

If it had been a dream, then Jamal wouldn't have been very worried. Well, he would have been at the time, but then he'd have woken up and been hugely relived to realize that it had all been a dream. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that the walls started to distort and then come crashing down all around him with a tortured wail of metal before he was crushed inside a deadly prison.

Unfortunately, Jamal Torsen was becoming increasingly sure that the regrettable state of affairs he found himself in was actually happening. About the only thing the situation had going for it was that so far the walls hadn't started sprouting mouths to bite him with, but the frightening reality of it all made it very hard to appreciate this fact.

Numb with fear, he sped down the crumbling halls of his ship in a desperate bid to reach an escape pod before he was crushed. He knew it was a foolish hope, as the pods would be similarly affected by whatever nightmarish power was doing this to them. And, even if he did managed to get to them and they remained undamaged, could they really be detached? It would make sense that whatever was doing this to them would have little interest in allowing survivors escape.

Jamal found himself unwillingly remembering the many ships that had suddenly gone silent, vanished in a haze of confusion and fear. Had this happened to them as well, or had they suffered a quicker demise?

A glass pane cracked under the pressure from outside, its dull crackle a much more chilling sound in comparison to the low groan or pained scream as the walls pressed in slowly.

Jamal paused, his eyes fixed on the crack that spider-webbed erratically on the observation point. His crew surged by, some bumping into him as they passed him on their way to the escape pods, but he paid them no mind. He was far too interested in watching with terrible fascination as the glass fought in vain to resist the growing biotic crush. It was strangely hypnotising, and he had a suspicion that the sudden and violent decompression and cold of space would be an infinitely preferable fate to being crushed to death. At least it would be a quick one.

Unfortunately, the strong biotic pull made this theory impossible to test out as it prevented the ship's atmosphere from escaping. The window pane shattered inwardly with a loud crash, showering both him and a few unfortunate enough to be nearby in glass and pain.

The commander reeled away, barely resisting the urge to bring his hands to his face, an action that would only make things worse. A face full of glass was bad enough with exacerbating it by pushing the shards in deeper with his pained fumbling.

Blinded, he staggered away, waving his hands around until he made contact with one of the walls. Or rather, both of them.

Unwillingly his eyes snapped open, unwilling to believe what he was thought was happening.

But his belief was irrelevant, and the suddenly narrower corridor was quickly enclosing around him. He wished fervently that he would wake up soon, but had little hope that it would happen.

* * *

Sae didn't know what was happening.

And that didn't extend to the physical aspect of things, what she was actually doing. That was simple enough to know. She was stealing a small transport ship from the cargo hold of the _Neleros_, surreptitiously slipping aboard and flying it out to reach the _Shepherd_.

No, she had no idea _why_ she was doing what she was doing. She simply knew that it was something she had to do, an irrepressible yearning that forced her to action.

The last thing she could recall before the strange haze had fallen over her was a sudden pain in her head, a voice that spoke not in words but sensations and memories. And what it said now was that Shepard was in pain, and she had to find him. Shepard needed her; he was calling out to her. It was a compulsion she couldn't resist even if she'd had the desire to.

It also stopped her from thinking about anything else. She was completely fixated on _his_ pain, _his_ needs.

It was a strange feeling, having that complete focus. It was as if there was nothing else in the galaxy that mattered, that reaching him was the only important thing to her. Which, a quiet part of her mind protested, she knew to not be true. The Second Fleet needed her, now more than ever. Without the _Ilikad_ their very existence was threatened, especially since they knew the Sol Accord was aware of their position and state. Shepard, without Tali to bind him to them, was hardly going to stick around and help them, so they'd be forced to rely on their own martial prowess to defend themselves. And the fleet would need as many synths as possible help coordinate their ships and the many other tasks that was best left to those who could help the Legions with their work, so she really shouldn't be off gallivanting off with psychotic, deranged ships.

But it was a distant, muzzy part of her mind that was silenced by the insistence of her need.

The _Shepherd_ called to her, and she could not help but obey.

* * *

**AN**: Relatively shorter than usual, but I couldn't reasonably go any further without having to make a monster of a chapter or sticking it full of filler. Jamal's segment is already pretty full of it. Also, is christmas. I'm busy :D

Yeah, Tali's gone. For good. Although if you didnt see _that_ coming a mile off then I'm sorry for you. I mean, really. I wasnt about to kill 'er and then bring her back. That would be silly- wait, I've done that before. Damn, self-burn.

On a side note, merry Christmas! New chapter should go up around the 8th of January, so yeah.


	13. Chapter 12

**AN:** Hey, y'know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna pimp my shit. Check out the other project that went up last week, **Rogue Nation**. After this story is done, it's gonna take up my main focus.

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any money for this. **Painkillers would be nice, though.

**2: I am sick. I need all the good energy I can get if I'm going to fight this most terrible of afflictions, nasopharyngitis **(i.e. the common cold)**.** **I might die, **(this is a lie) **and this could be your last chance to tell me what you think of this story.** (It won't.)

3: I apologize for the word Sesquipedalian. Not for using it, but because it _exists_. Truly, such an ungainly monstrosity should not _be_, let alone used. I'm pretty sure someone invented it just to win a game of Scrabble.

I hope you have some chocolate handy, because you're gonna need something sweet.

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter XII: Identity Crisis**

**

* * *

**

Sae felt immensely better about her decision (or compulsion) the moment she had returned to the _Shepherd_. The silent, glowing corridors and the reassuring knowledge that Shepard was close made her feel more at home than anywhere back on the Second Fleet ever had.

She found it strange that she would feel this way about some someone she had met not long ago, but it felt right. She _wanted_ this, and everything it entailed.

But she also knew that Shepard probably didn't want her here at the moment, and that probably put her in a precarious position. Almost certainly, in fact. He had just lost the one person he cared about more than anything, and a less rational mind might somehow blame her for what had happened. She had been the one to bring him back, she had played a role in convincing him to help them, she had simply stood by and _watched_ as they had destroyed the _Ilikad_.

Sae paused momentarily in confusion, wondering where the last thought had come from. She _knew_ that she hadn't been in a position to do anything else. She wasn't a captain, able to command her ship to block the incoming fire. She hadn't been aboard the _Ilikad_ and in a position to get Tali out of there before things had gone bad. She'd been a lone woman on a habitation vessel, simply watching things as they happened.

Thinking those thoughts made her feel inexplicably angry, though. It was a weak anger, more like annoyance than actual ire. Almost as if-

"You." The voice of Shepard broke the silence of the cavernous hanger like thunder in the distance, the deafening sound of it freezing Sae where she stood.

The malevolent arrays of red pulsed as the sound rang out, then swirled across every surface until she was completely surrounded by it.

It made her smile, to be greeted in such a way. So very similar to the first time she had boarded this ship that she wondered whether Shepard was aware of it. Had he perhaps had glimpses of _her_ memories, just as she had his? It was doubtful, as had seemed completely involved in acting out the memories she'd seen, but the possibility was there. Maybe he had stolen fragments of her own mind in his, and that was why she was so fascinated by him.

She scrunched her brow in concentration for a moment, suddenly confused. Why was she here? She should be back with the Second Fleet, helping her people recover from the attack. She should-

"What are you doing here?" Shepard demanded, almost as if he had sensed her thoughts.

He flashed into existence in front of her, blue gimlets of eyes boring into her.

"I, I don't know." Sae couldn't explain the sudden nervousness and fear she felt welling up inside her. It was just that the thought of somehow failing or disappointing Shepard seemed like one of the worst things in the galaxy for her. "It just seemed like the thing to do."

Shepard watched her silently, immovable as only a hologram could be. His close scrutiny made her all the more nervous, and it all she could to simply stand there and accept it. She could only what was going through his mind, as alien to her as the Geth were. Probably even more so, considering that even they were wary of him.

Eventually the hologram shrugged, apparently having reached some kind of decision.

"Don't break anything." He said with a sigh. "I don't want to have to try and figure out how to repair myself just now."

The woman nodded absently, glad that he didn't object to her presence.

"Were you hurt?" She asked, remembering that Shepard had been in the thick of the battle not long ago.

The hologram shook its head, exasperation plain on its face.

"No." It answered tersely, though much more subdued than she ever remembered it having been. He almost sounded beaten, as if there was nothing else that could be done to him or taken from him. It was a hollow voice, so very alien from the one that had been filled with life.

"Is there anything I could-"

"_No._" He ground the word out, and now there was a flanging quality to the sound. Sae was surprised by how similar it was the voice of the Legions, pure synthetic articulations and a stark void of emotion. It was a hollow sound, and it worried her.

Shepard couldn't change. He _couldn't_. He had to remember the man he'd been, had to stay the good man she remem-

Sae shook her head slightly, hoping the movements would shake the thoughts out of her mind. They _weren't_ her memories. She _didn't_ remember him in the flesh, the way he had been.

But how she _wished_ she did.

For a moment she stood paralyzed, stunned by that realization. Maybe it was because of her implants and her close contact with the Legions that she had been able to persist for so long without realizing it, but she didn't _want_ to be Sae'Sorel Vas Neleros, dutiful daughter of an admiral. She didn't want to be a mouthpieces of the Legions, an aberration of organic and synthetic.

She wanted to be Tali'Zorah, the hero of the Citadel. She wanted to be fight against impossible odds and win. She wanted to have the close bonds forged in battle and celebration. She wanted everything she had lost with her death, everything she had been before.

But mostly, she wanted the _Shepherd_. Or Shepard. But they were the same, weren't they? One was the ship, the other was the mind that guided it. A differentiation she could appreciate, with her life as a synth.

She wanted him to be as fascinated with her as she was with him. She wanted him to love her as he had the woman that he had lost. If she had to become someone else for that to happen, then so be it.

"Tell me about her." She asked quietly, numb lips fumbling slightly over the words as she spoke them. Why was she so nervous? There wasn't anything wrong with asking about someone who meant so much to him. It might even help.

The hologram sagged slightly, and the subtle gesture served only to reinforce the broken look he had to him. It hurt her, to see him like that.

"I don't want to talk about her." He said quietly. "She's gone."

Sae was disappointed, but she would not be so easily dissuaded from her course.

"Then show me." She said, louder and with stronger conviction.

The hologram looked started at that but also confused, as if it didn't quite understand what she was asking. The woman let her eagerness show, closing her eyes to focus on what she wanted.

Her other half reached out to him, grasped at the intricately networked mind that coursed all around her in the nano-machine arrays and the distant but ever-present stream of thoughts in the hull. For a moment there was only an unfamiliar sense loneliness, a hesitance to accept what she offered. Shepard did not know what to make of her, but he also yearned for something familiar. It was not long before the connection between them was established, her mind touching against his.

She gasped as it happened and staggered, but by then her mind was wholly connected. She did not feel the sudden gentle caress of biotics as they lifted her from the ground, holding her aloft to prevent her from falling.

Sae'Sorel Vas Neleros only knew that she was about to get closer to Shepard, and that she would become whatever he needed her to be.

**

* * *

**

The second time Sae connected her mind to Shepard's there was little of the confused haze of memories and emotion that there had been before. Hardly any, in fact. The moment her brain registered the forced input from Shepard she found herself once more in the hanger bay, but this time there was only the bright luminescence of Shepard and the vast, infinity-spanning network that made up his mind. It crawled across the floor, the walls, the ceiling, everywhere. Distantly she could see the hull, an almost solid network of light that burned brightly.

She recognized it as an artificial construct of his mind, something he had conjured for her to make sense of what he was. She appreciated the gesture, remembering all the times that the Legions had spoken to or through her. They had never done anything like this for her during those times, they had been content to merely be a voice in her mind. Then again, they had never attempted to bind themselves closer to her than they had to in order to make themselves understood, whereas Shepard was sharing parts of himself that she knew were very important to him.

There was very little surprise in her when she looked down at her body and found it similarly intangible save for a faint silhouette where her flesh would be and the unearthly glow of the Lazarus implants inside her. Clinically, she knew they crisscrossed around her bones, feeding a slow stream of nano-machinery into her bloodstream as needed. She knew that the visage she must have present here, that of a glowing skeleton, was technically inaccurate. But it was certainly entertaining.

With a laugh, she stroked her fingers against a pulsing glow she recognized as Shepard and savoured the sensation that came with it, a kind of electric tickle that reached up her arm and brought a shudder through her spine. It also brought with it a strange feeling, almost like-

_She glared glumly at the information in front of her, willing it to change through sheer force of will. The numbers were as good as he could make them, especially for a mission of this scale, but she still wished that things could be better. There was so much at risk, so much that could go wrong. But it was now or never. Any delay would mean the lives of her crew, and she would be damned if she would give anything more to the Collectors._

_As if sensing this her silent contemplation was interrupted the arrival of someone he hadn't quite been expecting. Hoping for, certainly, but not expecting._

"_So, I've taken some anti-biotics as well as some herbal supplements that should bolster my immune system." She watched in mild surprise as a hesitant young quarian entered her room, fidgeting slightly with her fingers. She turned to face the woman at the sound of her voice, and the grimness of her previous thoughts were banished as she took in the familiar features of the woman she loved._

_She felt herself smile as the woman removed a report from her hands- which had five fingers! – and drew in closer._

"_I was going to bring music," She began, uncertainty starting to creep into her voice. "But I didn't know what you'd like, and I'm babbling li-"_

She was abruptly yanked out of the memory by a stronger presence. She recognized the will of it even in the confused daze that seeped into her at the rapid withdrawal.

"Don't _do_ that!" The voice of Shepard demanded, appearing before her in a flash.

"Sorry." Sae apologized quickly, feeling ashamed for what she had done. But it had been so very hard to resist the temptation, and now she was left with a terribly hollow feeling. She _had_ to know what came next!

As if sensing her thought, Shepard shrugged nonchalantly.

"Don't be. You couldn't have known that would happen." Shepard consoled softly. "But that was a personal memory, I'm sure you wouldn't want to see it.

"B, but I _want_ to know!" Sae protested, surprising herself with the need in her voice.

The apparition of light before her regarded her carefully, a calculating look on its features.

"Alright," He eventually acceded, the word coming out carefully as if he was still considering the notion. "But these are _my_ memories. _I_ will be living them, not you."

Sae stifled a huff of disappointment before she could stop herself, but then thought better of it. She remembered the brief memory she had encountered, and the strangeness of it. She'd been _Shepard_ then, not Tali. And that was wrong.

"Yes." She agreed, perhaps a bit more eagerly than she actually felt.

Again Shepard regarded her curiously, but this was followed by a small shrug. Instead of questioning her further he instead stretched out a glowing hand. She took it without hesitation, and found herself transported once more to the past.

**

* * *

**

Only Shepard could say for sure how long the two of them had lain dormant, one reliving the best parts of his life and the other taking it all in, unwittingly burning it into her very being. They both got what they wanted from the experience, though Shepard had little inkling of what he was doing to the girl by showing her his memories. All he knew was that the present was far too painful to linger in, and the future wasn't even something he wanted to contemplate.

And Sae was all too willing to indulge him, and in the process lost more and more of herself.

Shepard didn't even notice when the young woman that was supposedly looking on changed, turned instead to the woman he loved. The change was gradual: a word echoed here or there, or a motion mirrored, but soon enough Shepard was replaying whole days with Sae instead of the ghost of the woman he loved.

In his defence a great deal of his most pleasant memories featured the focus of his affection in her environment suit, but not all of them were.

It was only when they were in the wilds of Rannoch, when he came face to face with her and realized with a slow terror that the woman in his arms was not Tali. He recoiled instantly, throwing her from his embrace with a gasp of horror.

Rannoch dissolved around him in a whirlwind of colour and code, leaving only darkness in its passing.

"Shepard?" The woman questioned, her voice tinted with confusion. "What's wrong?"

"_What the hell do you think you're doing?_" Shepard roared, and in that place his voice was like thunder.

bewildered eyes stared at him, mute terror readily apparent in them. For a moment Shepard felt ashamed of himself for reacting the way he had, but it was short-lived. He didn't even want to consider how many of his memories she had warped with her presence, how many times his unthinking solipsism had twisted the one part of him he treasured.

"What's wrong?" She asked again, fearfully this time. The confusion was even greater now, and now there were tears in her eyes at the violent rejection. "Shepard, what's happening?"

"This is _over_." He hissed, the fury building in him like a fire. He severed the link between them with a violent retraction of will.

The young woman found herself falling terrifyingly from her biotic cradle, landing unceremoniously on the ground with a loud 'oomph' that seemed even louder in the deathly silence of the _Shepherd_. For a moment she reeled, wondering what exactly was going on. Her mind was a haze of mystifying memories and sensations. Trying to remember anything too far back made her head hurt, which was not helping matters any.

Shepard in his holographic form stalked around her like some kind of feline predator inspecting its fallen prey, his eyes were narrowed in anger.

"I think it's time for you to leave, Sae." He bit out tersely, still glaring at her. "Go back home."

"What?" She gasped out, rolling around to regard him with perplexity. "What did you call me?"

Shepard paused momentarily in his angry circling for a moment, his anger lessening somewhat.

"Sae." He answered promptly. "I called you Sae."

The woman raised a brow in incomprehension.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, and the genuine confusion in her voice instilled doubt in Shepard. A frantic worry entered her voice as she continued on. "Shepard, where's my enviro-suit? I can't be outside like this!"

"Yes you can, Sae!" Shepard barked out, though now he was a great deal less certain of what exactly was going on. "You've never needed one!"

"What?" The woman sputtered wildly. "Shepard, what is _wrong_ with you? And why do you keep calling me that?"

"It's your _name_." Shepard said, almost hesitantly. "You're Sae'Sorel vas Neleros."

For a moment she only stared blankly at him, as if she didn't quite understand what he was saying.

"My name is Tali, Shepard." She said slowly, deliberately. "Are you okay, Shepard? You seem confused today."

**

* * *

**

Shepard didn't know what was going on. An addled girl had _not_ been one of the things he'd been trained to handle. Well, there had been that one girl on the Citadel, but there had been an a mutual history there. He had never encountered anything like this, never even thought such a thing was possible.

He was unsure if she was simply being wilful, a kind of insanity all on its own, or whether she really believed herself to be Tali'Zorah. His instincts told him that she was genuine in her persistence, but he was reluctant to believe that the girl had somehow managed to convince herself that she was a long-dead exiled Quarian.

But... There was also something besides bafflement in his musings. A dark whispering of a thought that urged him on, to accept this situation for what it was: A gift. Tali was back, though altered somewhat. But who was _he_ to complain about that, when he himself had changed so much? He wasn't even a real man anymore.

These thoughts served only to confuse him all the more.

He consulted the information Miranda had once given him on the Lazarus implants so long ago, hoping to uncover some secret from them that would explain all of this. But they merely raised more questions than before, as his new mind, with its access to so much information, was able to uncover even more blind spots in the research. How was he still able to wield biotics in the same manner he had as a man? How had he even survived in the first place, if his organic components had all been destroyed? How had he even been able to be restored the _third_ time? He still had vague memories of that time, disjointed feelings and thoughts that were quickly snuffed out by other, stronger wills. His mind had been unravelled, unstrung. How had it been reassembled?

The more he knew about his resurrection, the more he needed to know.

The Quarians would be little help in this matter, he suspected. If they knew anything about this, then they wouldn't have had to bring him back. He didn't even know if the organizations who had first resurrected him still persisted in some form or another. He hadn't been interested enough in finding out more about the various factions of the galaxy in light of the revival of Tali. Like a fool, he'd been completely fixated on it.

Too late he tried to access the Second Fleet's information, only to find that they had locked him out with his continued silence to their attempts to communicate. No doubt they thought he would renege on their agreement with Tali gone, and he would have to agree with them for thinking so. He had no intention of ever fighting for them now, even if it had been his own folly that had let it happen.

He tried to think instead of who else would have the information he needed. Hecate and Cerberus were the obvious suspects, but he didn't even know how he would go about contacting them even if they still existed. The Alliance, perhaps? No, they'd said something about a Sol Concord. Unless the Alliance had lost a lot of ground in recent days, it seemed likely that it had been succeeded by a new government. Would they help him? Probably not, as he was technically stolen property.

Who else would-

He remember with a jolt something Miranda had said once, when he had first returned in this new form. Lazarus implants were based off of the Dragon Teeth. Reaper technology. If anybody would know how they worked, surely they would? After all, as evil as they were they _had_ first developed it without reverse-engineering. Presumably, anyways.

But how could they help him? _Why_ would they help him? He'd destroyed them!

_No_, an insistent thought corrected. _He'd __killed__ them. _There was a difference, however small.

Even a dead god can dream, after all.

With a newfound goal in mind, Shepard plotted a course that would take him to the largest concentration of dead Reapers he knew would still be around. There was simply no safe way to remain there long enough to destroy them all and _not_ be perverted by their broken wills in some way. They would still be there, floating in their massive collective graveyard. Right where he had left them, centuries ago.

His stirrings must have alerted the young woman inside him to what he was doing, for she soon asked him what he was doing.

"Where are we going?" She asked, and it pained him that even her accent was the same. Only her voice was different, and it made him want to hate her for it.

Instead, he answered.

"We're going to get some answers, Tali." He said in a soothing voice, belying the frustration he felt.

**

* * *

**

It was a long trip from the fringe of the galactic to the Widow Nebula, with plenty of stops in between so Shepard could empty the charge that built up in him as leapt between stars, but eventually they arrived.

He could not have known it, but it had been left almost wholly untouched. Once the collective fleet of the Citadel remnants had saved what they could from that grisly place and dispersed there had few who dared to spend more time than they had to. Salvage teams, hoping to unlock the secrets of the massive sentient ships, had a tendency to disappear inside that cloud of wreckage. Those that did come back didn't speak of what they'd seen there, and were never quite the same again. Nobody could, in that silent chorus of dying dreams and subtle whisperings. It changed you, one way or another.

But to Shepard, there was nothing. The carcasses of dead Reapers were silent to him, infuriatingly so. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but this hadn't been it.

He drifted past those ancient hulls, and felt inside him the stirrings of the hatred towards them that had so fuelled him during the Reaper Wars. They were easy to hate, these vast demons of destruction and malice. They destroyed whole civilizations to sustain their own twisted form of life, had taken so much from the galaxy. And for what reason? They could have been so much more than malevolent overlords, more than mere Reapers.

They could have been gods in truth, nourishing the fledgling societies that emerged with the knowledge that had acquired on their way to becoming whatever it was they had become. They had certainly possessed the power for it, and there _was_ a kind of sinister majesty to them.

Shepard paused in his musing, and if he had a mouth he would certainly have frowned. His thoughts had taken an on odd turn at some point, if he could catch himself considering such things. With a startle he realized that something was amiss.

He felt a subtle shift in the mass effect fields as a drive core slowly powered up, stirred by a broken will.

_We sense you, Shepherd._

The voice he heard was a whisper on the edge of his perception, a sibilance of understanding. It troubled him slightly, that they would be able to speak to him so.

_And I you._ He called out into the void, uncertain if he was doing this right.

Unknowing why, the young woman suddenly perked up as if someone had addressed her. A small frown appeared on her lips afterwards, wondering why exactly she had done so. She returned instead to perusing the contents of her omni-tool.

Shepard saw none of this. He was too transfixed by the residual fear and hatred that he still bore for the Reapers.

_Your thoughts are crude, unrefined._ The whisper hissed back at him. _You trouble our dreams with your presence._

Dimly Shepard half-remembered the time before his restoration, and his muddled words to Tali._ The dreams hurt._ Maybe this was what he had been talking of? It was difficult to say. But he would be damned if he would show consideration to a _Reaper_ of all things.

_I don't care._ He answered with a small vindictive pleasure. These monsters had taken so much from him, and he was glad that he could torment them still even after he had defeated them.

_We know._ _What do you want from us?_

Shepard was more than a little surprised at the thing's apparent disregard for his own indifference to their suffering. He had expected at least _some_ kind of protest from them, and was more than a little disappointed that none was forthcoming.

_I need to know about you. How you were made, how you work._

Again the woman snapped her head up, and this time she clicked her tongue in annoyance before returning to her bored rumaging. What exactly was going on?

_Yes.._. The whisper trailed off thoughtfully. _You intend to start our great work once more?_

_Never!_ The emphatic denial was instantaneous, requiring hardly a thought. _There will be no more Reapers!_

There was silence for a moment, and in that silence Shepard became worried that he had alienated his former enemies. They were not obliged to aid him, after all. But this fear was proven groundless not long after when he received an influx of new sensations.

It was like the Prothean beacon all over again, but with little of the garbled confusion. Images and sensations flashed into his mind and memories, disjointed but somehow understandable. They flitted around his consciousness, painfully insistent and vibrant. Eons of knowledge was compounded into a single mind-searing moment of revelation. There was no learning, no questions. Shepard simply _knew_ everything he would ever need to know about Reaper creation.

_You amuse us, Shepherd. _The whisper told him. _So certain of yourself._

Shepard bristled at that, but chose not to question it on that issue. His past experiences with their kind did not engender a whole lot of willingness to do so, as it had often been thrown right back in his face. They delighted in twisting questions around, and crushing any hope they could sense.

Instead he pressed on with his own questions.

_What can you tell me of indoctrination?_

Again Shepard was forced to endure a speculative silence from the monster. And then he felt the subtle probing against his thoughts, tendrils of consciousness trying to invade his very being. He tried to ward them away, but the trouble with that was he had no notion of how he could. He'd never before been assaulted in such a manner, never had to protect himself from demons that tried to steal his very thoughts.

In desperation he lashed out in the direction of the drive core with his biotics, and instantly the violation ceased. The hull of the ship was torn asunder with the force of his blow, sending the ruined ship careening away into the nebula.

Further away, another hull powered up.

_How very strange you are, Shepherd._ The whisper was even fainter now. _We look forward to speaking to you again._

_What?_ Shepard demanded, furious at both the sudden dismissal and the invasion he had been forced to endure.

Silence greeted him, and again he was alone with addled woman who thought she was Tali'Zorah.

Listlessly, he watched her as she sat patiently waiting for him. She had ceased her bored idling, and was instead looking out into the nebula with a fascinated look on her face.

"It's much prettier without the faceplate." She remarked quietly, no doubt thinking she was alone.

Shepard was torn. On the one hand, he knew she wasn't the _real_ Tali. She couldn't be, not when he knew her real name and some of her history. She could never hope to be anything more than a shadow of the woman he loved.

Or could she? Certainly she couldn't as she was now, but could she be further... Altered to complete the transformation? She already believed, all she needed was the memories.

But he had only so many of them himself. He knew only of the time they had spent together. How much of her could be salvaged from that? It made up less than half of her life, after all. Would it be enough?

There was only one way to find out.

He watched her for a moment longer, pondering this line of thought.

He could send her back to her people. He didn't know if that would be enough to break her out of this malady, but there was a chance. She might get better.

But then he would be alone, and never have Tali back. Involuntarily he remembered the words he had said to Tali just before that fateful incident that had led him to yet another death of a sort. He'd said them out in his reconstruction of the Rannochian wilderness, and he'd meant them.

"_For you, I want to be eternal_."

And he _still_ did. But not without her.

He appeared next to her in a flash of light, a synthetic smile on his holographic face. She startled at his abrupt appearance, but calmed when she recognized his face among the stylized geometry of his new manifestation.

"I'm not sure I like this new hologram." She said with a small grin. "You shouldn't have changed."

The _Shepherd_'s false smile widened slightly as he forced mirth he did not feel to show.

"I thought it was about time." He said casually, trying desperately not to think too hard on what he was about to do this pale imitation of the woman he loved. "Would you like to join me on Rannoch again?"

**

* * *

**

**AN:** Shit just got _real!_ (Or unreal, rather.)

Ahem. I apologize. Both for that and my missed deadline. I may have put too much on my platter, and am struggling just a bit to keep up any kind of progress on my projects with the recent sickness and return to school. I also may have recently uncovered a cache of books I used to love and spent days on end being hypnotized, but that's beside the point.

Anyways.

So, Sae's been indoctrinated. It's been happening for a while, in fact. (Compare her growing neediness and confusion to her introduction, if you don't believe me.) I was actually kind of worried everyone would catch on to it earlier, but since nobody's voiced a suspicion I'll chalk it up as a win. Go me! I felt it would prove a sharp contrast to Tali's acceptance of Shepard's Rannoch in place of the real one. It also doesn't hurt that he's effectively _completely destroying_ someone for his own selfish needs.

Damn. I went all explain-y and stuff. I shouldn't do that.

On a completely unrelated note, the Cerberus News Network (12/01/11) just handed all the authors of fanfiction and fans of scifi games in general the _perfect chance_ for a Mass Effect X Alpha Centauri crossover. Not that I'd ever _write_ one, mind you. It just made me smile.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays, and are looking forward to what the new year brings.


	14. Chapter 13

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this. **Your ruined day is all the payment I need.

**2: This chapter is a week early. I think I deserve a reward. Give me your reviews!** It's like a cookie, but I can't eat it! Wait, I think I see a flaw in this plan...

3: I apologize for the use of the word Teratology. I like to think I learned that one through osmosis, because I certainly don't remember ever having looked it up.

I've been looking forward to this chapter for a while.

Oh ye of weak fortitude, you should really turn back now. Bad shit ahead.

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter XIII: Skeleton in the Closet**

**

* * *

**

Shepard hated himself for taking pleasure in what he was doing to the girl, strangely even more as she came to resemble the woman he loved even more with each time he warped her.

He knew he shouldn't have done it. He should have sent her away, and then maybe gone to some far off corner of the galaxy and gone back to sleep. He should have resigned himself to being incomplete for eternity. He should have gone forth and gotten himself killed. He should have done a thousand other things, each more grisly than the last, but never this.

But he hadn't realized what he'd started until after he'd done it to begin with, and once he had it had only served as a sharp reminder of what he had lost.

What the girl had become was not a great improvement upon what she had been. As she came to be more and more like Tali the small differences were all that more jarring. There were moments of uncertainty, confusion that he could not remedy, no doubt from missing memories that he could not give her. Or some other vital component to her character that simple brainwashing couldn't replicate.

Each progression was yet another reminder of how far she still needed to go before the transformation was complete. Every quirk, every misplaced word and every awkward pause was a dagger in his heart, both for who she wasn't and what he was doing to her. It was a slow death, one she was not even aware she was contributing to with her happy delving into a past that was not her own.

And yet... She comforted him. Thinking about her silenced the whispers of despair that had come with Tali's destruction. He found himself wishing once more for flesh, if only to wrap them around the young woman and pretend that everything was alright. Their virtual world was as perfect as he could make it, almost wholly indistinguishable from reality. But there was something to be said for not being in control of everything, for simply being a part of something else. To be merely mortal, subject to the whims of nature and circumstance.

Shepard didn't know when exactly either of those feelings had started, the longing or the sense of superiority. But he decided not to linger on them too long.

As he watched the woman chew thoughtfully on some of the nigh-fossilized nutrient paste that still remained on the ship (Shepard had been both incredibly impressed and slightly horrified that the stuff had still been edible. The woman had been halfway through a tube before he could stop her, but apparently there had been little danger beyond the initial frustration of _opening_ the damned tubes.) something on the edge of his perception attracted his attention.

Annoyed at being interrupted he focussed on the source of the disturbance, noting that the relay was active. That meant someone had entered the system, but he couldn't find them. With some trepidation searched the area, but could find nothing out of the ordinary about his surroundings. Remembering the last time he had allowed an enemy to get the better of him, Shepard remained wary even after this. A moment later he thought better of this and decided to drift back into the Reaper graveyard. _That_ would give any pursuers reason to pause.

The young woman snapped her gaze up suddenly, looking instinctively towards a nearby viewing port with a small frown on her face.

"Shepard, why are we moving?"

"I just felt like moving around a bit." He deflected airily, though he kept up his vigilance. "Maybe smashing a Reaper or two a bit."

"You're really bad at lying." Came the deadpan retort, which drew Shepard up short. "What's really happening?"

Shepard withdrew his attention from his surveillance to address the woman, though it made him nervous to do so. There was no way of knowing what was out there.

"Something's out there, and I can't find it. I don't think they'll follow us into the Reaper cloud, so that's where we're headed."

"Ah... That makes sense." Her voice was tinged with slight amusement. "At least they're finally proving useful for something."

Shepard didn't answer, his attention already back on the task at hand.

He had already failed twice, and Tali had suffered for it both times. Well, not so much the second time. But he wasn't about risk everything yet again, especially now that he was so close-

There.

He felt a twinge of mass effect not far away from where he was headed, and instantly reached out with his biotics to snuff out the sources. He felt their small distortions flare and vanish, ripped apart by his power.

But there was _still_ something out there, tiny distortions that moved too quickly for him to get a real lock on any of them. But how was that possible? Ships shouldn't be able to move that fast with such tiny mass effect fields. There had to be something more to this, some trick he had not accounted for.

A moment later he knew how it was possible when the hull of the _Shepherd_ was breached, disrupting his neural networks for a moment as they tried to compensate for the sudden loss, something that left him reeling in confusion and muddled thought before he recovered.

_They were attacking him!_

It was unfathomable. It was _impossible!_ Who would do such a thing, and with no warning to boot? How had they breached his barriers so easily? How had they known how to find him? It was not as if he had broadcasted his presence to the galaxy, and he hadn't seen a living soul once since arriving.

"Shepard, what's happening?" Tali asked fearfully, all other thoughts forgotten as the ship stirred around her.

Shepard ignored the imitation's question, and instead turned his focus to trying to locate the threat.

He found what he was looking for on the outer regions of the hull in the form of what looked like a strange sort of life-pod, frozen solid due to the superconductors nearby. His nano-machinery swarmed it, ripping secrets from the thing as they disassembled it to repair the damage done to the hull from its intrusion. A small amount of surprise went through him as he realized that someone was _inside_ the thing, killed by the cold. And then there was a mounting sense of fear when he realized there were _more_ of the things, and they might not all have been met with similar fates.

Frantically he scoured the rest of the breach sites, each corpse bringing a wave of relief while every empty pod brought with mounting fear. In the end, he accounted for four empty pods. four trespassers, their purposes in assaulting him unknown. They would have to be found, and quickly!

"Shepard!" There was a note of urgency in the woman's voice as she tried to gain his attention.

With some trepidation he turned his gaze back on the woman, and was relieved to see she was still alone.

"Everything's alright, Tali." He said, forcing himself to remain calm. "Just let me take care of some things, okay?"

"What things?" She demanded, standing up. "What's going on?"

"Someone's attacking us." He answered quickly. "And I am going to show them just how bad an idea that was."

"Attacking us? Why would-"

Shepard felt his consciousness suddenly torn violently away from the woman, forced instead to focus somewhere else. He had no control of what was happening, merely forced along by a stronger will. It was a wholly alien concept, something he had never encountered before. Even with the Reapers, there had been a struggle. Here, there was no choice other than to obey.

He stood in the deep blackness that he recognized as the initial stages of a neural connection, his holographic form alone in that infinite void.

"So, this is the 'Shepherd' I've been hearing so much about."

Shepard wheeled at the sound of a new voice, his blue eyes glaring hatefully at the source.

He did not recognize the stranger, a human male who seemed to be studying him closely. But he _did_ recognize the white and blue insignia of Hecate, three faces arranged in a triangle superimposed on the old Cerberus insignia.

"I must say, I was rather expecting something a bit more extravagant." The man continued, oblivious to the baleful gaze Shepard was giving him. "You caused me quite a bit of trouble, showing up at the Second Fleet like that. We thought you'd been destroyed."

"_You_ arranged that attack?" Shepard demanded, and felt his blood boil in his veins. Or, well, he got very angry.

"Well, no. But I did supply the intelligence that led to it, and believe me when I say my employers were _not_ happy when my information turned out to be bad." The man raised a hand and snapped his fingers casually, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Shepard found himself in a world of pain, every memory of the sensation flaring in his mind with such strength that he lost all focus. After so long of nothing, the sudden agony threatened to overwhelm him completely. It coursed through his being like molten lead, burning him alive from the inside out. He writhed, shifting in and out of focus as he lost control of his form.

"_I do not like to be wrong, Shepherd!_" The man shouted, making his voice known above the pain. As if to put a point to this the pain surged through him with renewed power.

Shepard screamed, his voice a garbled mess of pain and fury and synthetics. The flanging, screeching cacophony erupting from the light that made up his mouth was a thing wholly alien to organic ears. The darkness around him was banished as he became nothing more than a flare of light, all traces of humanity vanished as he lost all thought to the agony.

And then as quickly as it had come it left him. He quickly regained control, though he still reeled from the sensation. He glared hatefully at the man in front of him who seemed wholly indifferent to what had happened.

"Look at you, pretending to be a person." The insult was merciless as the stranger sneered openly at him. "You can't even take a little pain without your pathetic little illusion breaking. It's not even funny."

"I'll kill you." Shepard hissed angrily, and tried to bend the world to his will as he had done so many times. Worryingly, nothing happened.

"No, you won't." Was the flippant reply. "You're not even alive anymore, Shepherd. You're a _machine_. And machines can be controlled."

"_I am not a machine!_" Shepard shouted back, yearning with every fibre of his being to tear the hateful little worm apart. "_I am John Shepard!_"

"A pathetic lie. Shepard's dead. You're just a remnant. A _mistake_." The man turned away suddenly, not bothering to look at the thing in front of him any longer. "But I will rectify that. Welcome to Hecate, Shepherd. We have plans for you."

And with that Shepard was abruptly thrown out of that dark world, back in control of the ship. Still hot with fury he reached out with his mind in search for the intruders, intent on murder. But he met resistance as he tried to do so, keeping him in place.

Confused and beginning to feel fear once again he tried once more. Again the ship failed to respond to his commands.

Desperate, Shepard tried to access any of his other systems. One by one, each and every one of them refused to obey his will.

For the first time in centuries, Shepard felt a helpless despair set in, realizing there was nothing he could do.

**

* * *

**

"Shepard?" The woman asked, weakly.

Her head hurt, a sudden pain that had come from nowhere. She didn't know why it had come, or why it filled her with worry, but it would not relent.

"Shepard?" She called again, louder this time.

What was happening? She'd been talking to him just a moment ago, and then he'd just vanished! Something was happening, something _bad_, but Shepard hadn't told her what.

She wished she had a weapon of some kind, something with which she could defend herself and maybe destroy whatever intruders had managed to sneak themselves on board. But there wasn't anything that she knew of that could be used as a weapon on the ship, which made a kind of sense. What point would there be in it, when she was the only person supposed to be there?

A distant memory came to her, one that made no sense. She remembered a ship, stolen from... Somewhere, she couldn't tell. It was a jumbled thought, and made no sense. But she remembered it, with a strange certainty. The ship would have weapons. It had to.

But that was not to be, it seemed.

As she rose to begin her search the doors to the bridge slid open and several human forms burst through, their weapons tracing her body as they moved.

"Don't move!" They shouted at her, and such was her surprise that she obeyed.

She was bound, arms behind her back, and kept under guard as the soldiers attempted to make sense of the mess that was the_ Shepherd's_ navigation systems.

"Shepard." She muttered quietly, hoping that somehow he would hear her call and respond.

But her saviour was silent. Shepard was gone.

**

* * *

**

Shepard, if his being were to be translated into physical terms, was ablaze with impotent rage as he struggled to free himself of his restrictions. Well, perhaps not screaming. A voice was required to make any kind of noise. But if he had the ability he would have sounded his intense displeasure at the change in the situation.

Even with his strange power over the machines of the _Shepherd_ he could do nothing more than watch with mounting anger as these impudent _insects_ invaded his halls and forced him to bow to their will. He hated them more for that, for binding him like some kind of animal. He was _John Shepard_, damn it! He deserved better than this!

Again he surged against the codes that locked him away from any of the powers he'd discovered since his revival, his mind aflame with fury at his predicament. He writhed and surged against them, throwing the whole of his consciousness into the effort in a desperate bid to free himself. But it wasn't enough, and he remained bound.

As he realized that he had been unsuccessful yet again despair began to set in. An urgency entered into his desperate attempt, but even that yielded nothing.

He withdrew from the barriers, disgruntled and increasingly worried. He had to break free. He had to save Tali.

With an almost forlorn wistfulness he probed the walls of his prison, searching desperately for something that might allow him to break free where brute strength had failed him.

Something moved. He could feel it, in a distant sort of way. It was a physical thing, one he wasn't used to after so long in his new form. Experimentally, he tried to shift his consciousness to this strange new sensation, but found it could not support him wholly. It was battered, broken and forgotten by him. But it had been overlooked by those who had bound him as well. Concentrating as hard as he could, he tried to guide his nanite-arrays to this form. With any luck they would be able to compensate for what it lacked.

For the first time in centuries, he opened his eyes and took in the darkness around him. As if sensing his annoyance at this his body flared with sudden luminescence, filling the room with dim red light. Shepard moved, and heard a low crackle as he broke free from what remained of his body.

It was quite distressing to see his flesh fall from his bones, leaving only the glittering steel, blackened skeletal remains and glowing red nanomachinery. He looked in silent amazement as his limbs moved perfectly even without muscles to guide them. They were instead held together and moved by the red glow that even now surged across him.

With renewed determination he forced himself to stand, wobbling slightly as he realized that balance would be difficult with any of the benefits of flesh. He pressed a hand against where he knew an entrance would be, and was deeply satisfied when it parted, exposing him to what had come to be called the Tomb.

Normally he would have taken the time to study his surroundings, attempt to make sense of the strange depictions. But he had only one thing on his mind right now, and that was inflicting as much pain as he possibly could on those who had thought they could cage him and not suffer for it.

Wires snapped free with electric sparks and hisses as he tore himself free of tiny room that had housed his remains for so long and took a careful first step outside, the first in centuries. Nanomachinery seethed from the walls and up his body, casting the room in darkness even as it lit him up like some kind of diabolic revenant.

He took a moment to regain his bearings, and then he was moving.

Nothing would stop him.

**

* * *

**

The woman who thought she was Tali'Zorah watched as the pulsing red arrays of waned in strength, then slowly darkened completely, throwing the room into an inky darkness.

She felt a weight she hadn't been aware of before withdraw from her mind, bringing with it a sudden revelation. As others began to panic at the sudden development she became more and more certain in herself, enjoying hugely the sudden feeling of being in control.

She was still aware of the greater consciousness, the true inhabitant of this vessel, but it was a distant sort of awareness. His thoughts arrived in her mind in whispers and snippets of frantic desperation, but with them came a growing certainty.

Her lips contorted into a small grin.

"He is free." She declared confidently, laughing internally at the quiet curses of her captors.

"Shut your face, freakshow." One of them ordered angrily, and a moment later she staggered as someone kicked her to the ground, the grinding her face painfully against the floor.

The blatant show of unease brought a real laugh to her mouth this time.

"He's coming." She told them, feeling a bizarre freedom in the proclamation. "He's going to _destroy_ you!"

"I said _shut up!_"

This time she was kicked just below the ribs, a blow the forced the air from her lungs and silenced her laughter with a pained gasp. She heard the rest of them berate the one that had assaulted her, but she tuned them out.

She felt him, a presence in her mind that grew stronger with each passing moment. He was close, now. It wouldn't be long.

**

* * *

**

He didn't like this form.

It was far too restrictive, it was weak and most of all it limited him. He hadn't realized before just how much he had come to rely on the intricate and powerful neural networking that allowed him to process everything in the blink of an eye. How had he ever managed before? Somehow his past seemed just a little bit more fantastical, a little bit more alien.

Did that make him better than before? His power, when it wasn't denied him by tricks and traps, was unquestionably greater than before, and he his mind had never been sharper. Or had he become lesser than the man he had been? Despite his limitations, he'd been able to unite a galaxy and destroy those who had threatened it. Without that fantastic strength, he'd beaten back monsters that had threatened to end all sentient life. What did it say about him, that he had grown dependant upon it? Then again, his old form had more than mere bone to draw upon. So maybe things weren't as different as he'd first supposed.

He moved on, disregarding that line of thought. With each staggering, unsteady footstep something new rustled loose from his bones, some vestige of his previous humanity that he no longer had a need for. He steadied himself against the wall as he moved, his feet uncertain without any balance to guide them and centuries of disuse. Occasionally he felt a sudden feeling of loss or a stabbing pain as the falling remnants of his flesh took with them some long-disused implant, tearing them loose.

By the time he reached the bridge of the ship he was almost wholly skeletal, frayed wires hanging from his spine and ribcage and illuminated by a malevolent red glow from his nanomachinery. He could only imagine what kind of monster he must look like, a living study in morbid teratology. The thought would have brought a smile to his features if not for the simple fact that skulls are capable of little else.

He stood before the doors that he knew would take him to the invaders, and a small amount of glee he forced coat of nanomachinery to die down, shrouding his surroundings in gloom as he placed his bony fingertips on the door, willing it open.

The worried soldiers instantly whirled at the sudden movement, opening fire on something they could not see.

Shepard staggered back as he was struck by a few bullets, the sudden jerks in his body flinging sprays of nanomachinery off his body that flared brightly into life behind him and illuminating his form from behind, turning a shadowy figure into an impossible monster. For a moment he was afraid their onslaught would damage his body, but apparently his bones had become reinforced as more and more of it was converted into machine.

He threw himself forward, bursting into the room in spite of the panicked assault. In the midst of their onslaught he was a shambling, unbalanced mess of unnatural movements and obscurity, visible only in brief moments at a time as bullets sparked or an occasional hit sparked off brief red light.

He found the first one by his excited shouting and the glow of his weapon, and leapt at him with little regard for what might happen. The man let out a brief, horrified shout as he came face to skull with Shepard, his strength leaving him as skeletal hands latched onto his arms. His bony fingers were like blunt daggers as he jammed them violently through a weak point in his armour, just below the armpit. He savoured the pained gasp as he tore his hand free only to repeat the movement, blood splashing across the floor and flaring brightly as it was consumed by the tiny machinery with their hungry light.

Shepard pushed himself away from his victim, staggering backwards as he searched for someone else to attack. He smashed into someone else, and with lightning speed he made an unnatural twist that brought a hand down like a claw across his victims face, carving deep gouges through their cheek and tearing looses flesh. The sounds of pain greeted this, but he was already bring his other hand up to complete the kill, ramming a thumb through a bleeding temple. He was pulled down as the body suddenly crumpled to the side, an action that forced him down to knees.

Something struck him from the side, and suddenly Shepard was smashed against the floor in several pieces.

"The hell _is_ that thing?"

Shepard struggled to move, the one arm and leg still attached to him flailing wildly for purchase as he tried to locate the other parts of his form to resume his vengeance.

"I _told_ you he was coming."

Shepard froze at that, realizing with a start that they had Tali.

All at once the room was aflame with the glow of nanomachinery, coursing down from the very walls like blood to wrap itself around him in its strengthening embrace.

"_You should have left us alone!_" He shrieked at them, and his voice was no longer recognizable as that of Shepard. The flanging, furious voice almost wholly machine, the only recognizably organic thing about it being the anger.

The glowing red mass converged on the scattered bones, carrying them back to their owner who even now was pushing himself off the ground with great effort. For the first time the invaders got a good look at what they were fighting, at Shepard. And all they saw was a horrific parody of life, blackened bones and frayed wires coming together in a worrying display that defied the mundane. As his loose arm climbed its way up his ribcage guided by the glowing red substance and pushing himself off the ground with the other, they took several steps back, both frightened by the terrible visage.

"_Holy shitting Christ!_" Gunfire soon followed the frightened exclamation, and Shepard was thrown back once more as they impacted against him.

He clattered against the floor with little sound save a metallic clank, causing the Quarian onlooker to cry out in distress.

The two remaining soldiers watched warily as the skeletal remnant of Shepard lay still, still wreathed in malevolent red light. After a few moments of inactivity the closest one edged forward slowly, taking each small step with great caution. After what seemed like an eternity a foot nudged the pile of bones and light nervously, ready to leap away at a moment's notice. When it failed to move the foot prodded once more, stronger this time. Again, no reaction.

With a quiet sigh the soldier turned to address his comrade, a relieved and sheepish grin on his lips as he did so.

It was almost poetic the way Shepard suddenly rolled over and snatched hold of a leg, using that purchase to seize another handhold further up and then continue the process, climbing up the man's back despite the suddenly terrified whirl. It was surprisingly difficult with only one leg, as it was difficult for Shepard to wrap the limb for added purchase while still climbing upwards. And, of course, each wild flail as the panicked man sought to shake Shepard loose caused him to lose footing and swing outwards distressingly. But soon Shepard's skeletal hand found a shoulder, and from there it was easy for the other to find the throat.

He dug his fingertips in just above the larynx, ignoring the wet, gurgling attempts breath that came from the action and tore outwards. The man staggered forward, clutching at his throat in a desperate but fruitless attempt to staunch the blood flow. Shepard released his grip and fell back to the ground, landing on a swirling mess of nanomachinery. With the dying man in front of him Shepard was relatively safe from continued gunfire, though now there was the new danger of what happened if said man decided to crush Shepard with his death throes. With this in mind, Shepard tripped the man up, forcing him to fall forward as strength left his body.

Shepard's remaining leg reattached itself easily in that time and now Shepard was back on both feet, rising slowly.

The last one merely watched in abject, wide-eyed terror.

Without a word Shepard advanced on him, the skull's fixed grin oddly appropriate.

* * *

The girl who had been Sae'Sorel watched in fascinated horror as Shepard dealt with the last of the intruders, those terrible hands doing things that she'd never had suspected he was capable. She watched as Shepard placed his hands on the sides of the soldier's face in what might otherwise have been mistaken for a loving gesture, bring his thumbs up and _oh keelah why wouldn't he stop screaming?_

She couldn't tear her eyes away from the horrific scene no matter how much she wanted to, transfixed by the grisly nature of what she was watching.

It couldn't be Shepard.

Shepard would never do these things, would never take savage glee in seeing his enemies destroyed. Shepard would never torture someone before killing them. Shepard would never- He wouldn't! It couldn't be him!

But she knew it was. She knew with a sick certainty that it _had_ to be him, nobody else was capable of it. She knew it like-

Like she was a part of him.

The sudden realization took her aback, the full horror of it sinking in like a weight. Had he- Yes, he had to have. The confusion, the disjointed memories, the strange fixation Shepard had for retracing the past. When had she lost the need for an environment suit? It made no sense. What had Shepard done to her?

Who _was_ she?

When Shepard let the limp heap that had been a living person fall to the ground, and turned to face her she knew for certain that the thing in front of her wasn't Shepard.

That couldn't be him, the man who had cradled her in his arms when her world had been falling apart on the _Alarei_. The man she knew and loved would not have done these things, not to his enemies and most definitely not to her.

This thing was something different. A monster that twisted minds and killed without thought or mercy.

Tali took only a moment to produce a name for the monster in front of her, and then gave voice to it.

**

* * *

**

"Reaper."

The word came out of the woman's fear-numbed lips as whisper, eyes fixed upon him. Shepard froze mid-step, wondering if he had heard right or if maybe he had imagined it.

"_What did you say?_" He asked cautiously, fearing the answer.

"You're a Reaper!" She screamed, and scrabbled to get away from him. "Stay away from me!"

Shepard stood paralyzed for a moment, reeling from the accusation.

A Reaper? Who was _she_ to call him that? She hadn't been _alive_ when they had come, threatening them all with annihilation! She'd never even have been _born_ if he hadn't brought them low! And this _fake_, this weak impersonation of the woman he loved called him _Reaper_?

He felt the fury build up in him once more as he advanced on the woman, his fingers forming claws without his knowledge.

"_I am not a Reaper!_" Shepard denied angrily, giving her a chance to take back her accusation.

"Look at yourself!" She cried out, pointing. "Look at what you've become! Look at what you _did!_"

"_I am what you made me!_" He said with a snarl, slapping the hand away. "_I'm John Shepard!_"

"You're a _Reaper_, John!"

"_No! You don't know what you're talking about!_" He howled. "_You aren't her; you're just what I wanted you to be! You're a __lie__! I made you what you are!"_

He lashed out before he could stop himself, steel fingers clenching around her throat like a vice, silence her.

"_You aren't her!" _He ranted, tightening his grip. "_You aren't Tali!_"

He ignored the gurgling noises that came from her mouth, and instead focussed

"_You're just a dream!_"The exclamation came with a chorus of crunching cartilage and wet gurgling. "_I don't need you!_"

**

* * *

**

It was later, and the Shepherd was alone amidst the carnage of his vicious onslaught.

It had only been a matter of time before he had managed to regain control of the ship, his will breaking through whatever Hecate had done to him. But that was not what concerned him.

He had to find Tali, bring her back. That was what had to be done. He needed her.

But first, he had to make sure no one could stop him ever again.

**

* * *

**

**AN: **I believe I mentioned a bleak warren at the start of this story. Welcome to ground zero.

I thought I'd try my damndest to get this chapter done quickly in order to keep some kind of a schedule goin'. Strangely, I'm glad I managed to meet my self-imposed deadline. My inner slacker is still sneering at me for this sudden bout of productivity, but shushed him with a cookie.

Shepard didn't account for the possibility of more of the Ghost-class ships, if only because he didn't know he had to. They were used _before_ he came back, and so wasn't aware of their existence. Further, centuries of development would only have made them even more effective.

And yeah, I used the age-old horror scene ("is it dead?" "Go check." *prod* "looks dea- ARGH, MY SPLEEN!" "ZOMG!") but it just had to be done. It was in ME 1-2 (mebbe again in 3? Should be fun to find out :D) so I thought I'd put it in here for shiggles.

The next chapter is the last one. After that, there'll be sort of extra-feature style of thing. Themes and ideas, statistics, scenes I redacted out of the story, public thanks to the various reviewers and so forth. If you have a question that's been nagging at you, or would just like to see something in the style of a short omake, feel free to ask. (If for some reason _you_ have one written out, do send it in and I'll put it in with credit due. Just bear in mind that it needs to be done a week after the last chapter goes up.) If you just have an idea you'd like me to play with, make sure it's interesting/funny enough to make me _want_ to write it :D


	15. Chapter 14

**AN:** I briefly debated releasing this on Valentine's day, just so I could _fight_ all that love in the world. But then I decided that I should be early, and really let it all set in.

**1:**** I don't own any of the **_**Bioware**_** characters, settings and whatever else they got. I'm also not receiving any pay for this. **Not until I rule the world with an iron fist, I won't.

I should probably get cracking on that.

**2: This is the last chapter. You have no excuse not to tell me what you thought of the story.** Well you might. But I really would like to know what you think of the story. Y'know, if I managed to stab you in all the right places, entertain you, that sort of stuff.

3: I apologize for this chapter coming out so late. It was a combination of my graphic card deciding that suffering for my amusement was no longer worth it, not wanting to hurt my eyes and then having a revision of the chapter that did it. But with any luck this will wound you more than what I had initially planned, _and_ be a surprise!

I hope you've enjoyed both this story and your soul, because I'm ending former and breaking the latter.

* * *

**Deadly Resurrection**

**Chapter XIV: The Shepherd's Call**

* * *

Shepard spent a long time simply drifting amidst the ruin that had been his greatest triumph in life. Surrounded by dead gods who were all too eager to share every hidden secret, every forgotten dream and all the misplaced knowledge that had created the galaxy he'd lived in. He no longer feared them as he had before. They weren't the faceless monsters he remembered, but instead hopeless bystanders forced to wait for the stars to grow cold and die before finally winking out of existence. It was a terrible fate, to be sure, but at least they dreamed. And, in a way, it was just. They had tried to perpetuate their kind into eternity, only for their own ambitions to bring them low.

But now he was ready to start a new life, a new future. Nobody would have to die again; they could become eternal beings of infinite power and intelligence. The Shepherd wouldn't be alone, but instead the first of many others. He would usher in a new era of existence, an era where there was no suffering, no pain, no death. Those things would never have to happen again once he was done.

And if the first of their kind were the people he knew and loved, then what of it? They hadn't deserved what had happened to them, especially not Tali. She should have had so much more than what fate had given her.

And this time, he would remake her perfectly. There would be no more mistakes, no more flawed experiments. This time, she would see him for who he was. She would love him once again. She _had_ to!

The Shepherd stirred, and as he did a thousand dreams trembled in anticipation all around him. They were eager to see him on his way, these dead monstrosities. They wanted only for him to succeed. Normally he would have been more wary of this, but he just couldn't bring himself to care overly much. There was simply too much to be done.

"I've given enough to the galaxy." He declared to the void, taking strange pleasure in doing so. "It's time that it gives something back."

Hecate would have to be the first to go, not only for their audacity in attacking him but for how close they had come in enslaving him. They would have to be destroyed as soon as possible, before they could present a greater threat.

He couldn't be stopped. What he was about to do was far too important, there could be no failure.

* * *

Many people considered Victor Mallus to be unflappable, which was wholly untrue. Well, mostly untrue. The few times something actually did manage to surprise him he had usually been able to reign in his initial reaction and force himself to remain calm, or he'd had the foresight to avert his face. The truth was that the galaxy was a huge place that was constantly in flux, and anyone who could all of its wonders and horrors without missing a beat was quite possibly missing a vital component.

Which was why he was currently wondering about the whereabouts of the strike team that had vanished aboard the _Shepherd_ with a perfectly sculpted mask of calm in spite of the small niggle of worry. The last transmission he'd received from them reported that they had seized a Quarian woman and were currently trying to access the ship's navigation systems. And then everything had gone silent, leaving everyone wondering what had happened.

Victor suspected he knew what had happened, but he did not give voice to these suspicions. Nobody wanted to know that he had made a miscalculation, made a mistake. He was the mastermind behind all their activities, and if he was capable of such a grievous error then something was terribly wrong.

Not long after the team had gone silent they received a termination signal of the virus they'd managed to upload in the ship's consciousness. _That_ confirmed his suspicions, and those of his underlings if the way they were now casting furtive glances at one another was any indication.

"Still nothing?" He asked the room in general, not bothering to look at anyone in particular. They generally didn't like it when the boss took an interest in them.

"Nothing, sir."

Victor frowned, then sighed in resignation. A second attempt would be so much harder now that the Shepherd knew what to be on the lookout for. HHe supposed it would be too much to ask for that someone would provide a distraction that he could seize upon. Sometimes the galaxy was just so... _unreasonable_.

"Terminate our connection to them. If they haven't contacted us by now then something must have happened."

"On it, sir." Someone called out.

Victor waited impassively, a slow worry building up inside him. Despite his outwardly placid appearance he was beginning to wonder if he had made a serious mistake in trying to capture the _Shepherd_.

The ship was powerful, to be sure. His team had hacked the files of the Second Fleet to find out just what had almost wholly annihilated the fleet dispatched by the Accord, only to discover that a single vessel was responsible. From there it had been a matter of digging until they uncovered the origins of the said ship, which had eventually led all the way back to the founding of the very organization he ran. He had been greatly surprised to learn that his predecessor had had a hand in creating the thing, but he had been even more surprised to learn that she had, for a brief time, continued research into sentient software and Reaper metamorphosis. The research had only lasted a few years before being discovered, and was put to a stop, but it had proved to be a huge boon.

With the research that their founder had begun they had been able to synthesize a whole new kind of virus, something that could cripple sentient machines. The applications would have ended the little war against the Second Fleet with a quickness had Victor not set his sights on a greater prize. The Shepherd, by means that were still unknown, was the most powerful ship in the galaxy. Capable of singlehandedly destroying fleets, incredible speeds and, once properly reigned in of course, a powerful intellect, the Shepherd would have been the flagship in an invincible fleet. They'd have a "god" on a leash, ready to loose upon an unsuspecting and disorganized galaxy. Humanity would no longer have to contend with rivals.

But alas, that was not to be. Oh well. At least they would be able to-

"Sir, I can't access their omni-tools." One of the techs informed, worried note in her voice.

Victor felt a chill run up his spine at that, and despite his better judgement he brought his attention down hard on the young woman who had just told him this.

"What's the problem?" He asked warily, approaching her work station with narrowed eyes.

"I, I don't know." She answered, and now her voice was frantic. "They just won't respond to any command or prompt."

Victor straightened himself, and thought carefully about what he would do next. It was only a moment, but that was enough for him. He hadn't risen through the ranks of the organization by being an idiot, after all.

"I want everyone to spend the next ten minutes trying to sever the link. If we still can't, then I want volunteer personnel only. Everyone else..." He considered his next words before smiling slightly, trying to instil some kind of confidence in his underlings. "Abandon ship."

There were a few nervous titters at his imprecise wording, but then they went to work.

Ten minutes wouldn't be a long time, but it would have to be enough. If they couldn't get it done by then, then there was likely nothing that _could_ be done. And if that was the case, then they'd already wasted ten minutes in a fruitless effort.

Victor had little illusions about the people he surrounded himself with. Very few would stay with him to confront the monster that would come for him. The rest would flee, most in an effort to salvage what they could of Hecate for future efforts and the rest out of cowardice. But those precious few would be vital, and would quite possibly be the last chance for the galaxy to stop the Shepherd.

The Second Fleet had roused a demon from slumber in their desperation, but he had goaded it when it had seemed prepared to return to dormancy. He couldn't imagine that the Shepherd would be content to stop with just Hecate. Even if it wasn't enraged by what his actions, it would only be a matter of time before someone else lusted after its powers and similarly failed. And Victor was vain enough to believe that if _he_ had not been successful, nobody could. Hecate had had all the research, had known _exactly_ how to beat it. Nobody else would have that knowledge.

If he had been a good man, he might have used the ten minutes he'd allowed his underlings to work to spread that information to every organization that might have a chance at being able to utilize it. But he wasn't. No, if humanity couldn't have the Shepherd, nobody could. And if Hecate had to die, then so would everyone else.

But they wouldn't lose. They _couldn't_. Victor would not allow it.

* * *

The Shepherd ripped the information he needed from the bodies of the interlopers even as the glowing red goo devoured them with a brilliant red light. He broke through the security of their equipment with a thought, their flimsy VIs vanishing as he tore through their systems in search of the information he needed. The lives of the men and women he had killed only hours ago unfolded before his uncaring eyes, their secret hopes and ambitions forgotten in the instant the Shepherd deemed them worthless. Instead it was their knowledge he craved, what they knew of their masters.

It took only a few seconds for the Shepherd to learn what he needed. A moment later the dark, titanic form of the _Shepherd_ moved to leave the cloud of wreckage, leaving behind the ruin that had been his last mortal act. As he left the dead returned to their restless slumber, losing themselves once more as the focus of their attention disappeared.

The Shepherd wrapped itself in layers upon layers of mass effect, making the leap between stars with through sheer strength of will rather than ancient artefacts. He was the only one who could boast such a feat, even amongst those who had first developed the technology. He was unique, superior than those who had come before him. He wasn't sure how, but it was a truth that could not be denied. The galaxy was his, and he could go anywhere he wanted in it.

Following the logs back to the isolated system on the edge of what he had recently learned to be human expansion, the Shepherd soon found the lonely satellite orbiting that he was looking for.

He could feel several small ships fleeing the system, and he debated for a moment if it would be worth the effort to destroy them. He decided against it, if only because they were on the opposite side of the system while the station was so much closer. Unless they had purged everything from it, there would be information he could use to more efficiently track down Hecate and destroy them.

He had to keep his priorities straight. Hecate was the real danger, as they had already proven. If left to their own devices they would be able to assail him once more. And with their previous failure they would be all the more cautious, likely to wait until they were certain of victory. The Shepherd was not a fool, and recognized that it was not indestructible. If it allowed them to, these nuisances could easily destroy him. After all, he was only one while they numbered in the tens of billions.

And besides... There was the man who had invaded his mind. The Shepherd could still see him, sneering as writhed in agony. The man had degraded him, tried to enforce a terrible kind of slavery upon him.

The insult had to be addressed. He would be shown the magnitude of his error, and know the punishment for what he had tried to do.

The Shepherd was only visible as a moving shadow across an infinite expanse of stars. They could see him only by what he obscured and by the sheer power of his mass effect. Just as he could feel the distant satellite like a weight in his soul, a tiny distortion that cast out ripples, they could sense him. How terrifying he must seem, a vast maelstrom of cataclysmic power hurtling towards them.

He could tear the thing apart like a toy, but that would serve no purpose. It would risk destroying what he needed. No, he would have to find what he was looking for with the pathetically inadequate form he had recently rediscovered.

The idea did not appeal to him. He was vulnerable and weak, devoid of the power that the _Shepherd_ provided. He would be slow and ungainly, a parody of this gloriously powerful existence.

But it would be a small price to pay for what he needed.

* * *

Victor stood alone in the command centre of his satellite, staring out into changeless sea of stars above him as he waited patiently for what he knew would kill him. As he had predicted, precious few had remained with him. And he'd even sent them away once they had readied this last, desperate assault against what could only be a physical god. There was no other way to describe it.

The Shepherd's arrival in their system had screamed across their gravimetric sensors, and then that impossible distortion had lessened into something that was merely terrifying. Seeing that, Victor had banished what little hope he had for surviving and instead resigned himself to martyrdom. The others had only been too willing to die in their stead, grateful that they would not have to sacrifice themselves needlessly.

The man played with his omni-tool in boredom for a moment, wondering what exactly was taking the thing so long to reach him.

He hadn't been subtle in revealing where he was. This room was the only one with a functioning controlled atmosphere as well as any functioning terminals. If anybody hoped to fight the Shepherd_,_ this would be the only place to do it.

As if to answer his silent question the only doorway into the room alarmed him quietly that someone was attempting to breach it. And a moment later he was quite startle when something smashed against the steel panel of a door, shattering the serene quiet with a thunderous _clank_. This was soon followed by another, and yet another before Victor had had enough and opened it himself.

If the Shepherd was surprised by his actions he was incapable of showing it.

"_Thank you._" The thing said, and for a moment Victor could almost convince himself that the skeletal grin on that skull curved upwards into a genuine smile. But it was a trick of the light, likely merely a shift in the swarm of nano-machinery that pulsed across its blackened bones.

"You're welcome." Answered neutrally, expertly reigning in the fear that was welling up in him as the thing approached.

For a moment it watched him, baleful red eyes staring unflinchingly as it tried to take in everything about him. After a time it seemed satisfied, as it moved into the room with the shambling, uncertain steps of one who cannot balance themselves.

"_You're a brave man to wait for me._" It said slowly, warily. It feared a trap, of course.

Victor stood impassively, allowing nothing of the turmoil within to show.

"So I've been told." He said, and then he smiled. "But I just wanted to see it for myself: A bedtime tale that turned out to be real. A live Reaper, the last of its kind."

"_I am not a Reaper!_" It shrieked at him in fury, but sadly he was not so fortunate to goad it into action.

Victor shrugged, and turned away from the monstrosity in equal parts provocation and to escape looking at it. It hurt him to look upon that terrible parody of life and remember that it had once been like him.

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck-" He went on, glibly.

The sound of the Shepherd's feet across the floor was a worrying series of clicker-clacks as it surged forward only to reign itself in a moment later.

"_You're trying to trick me." _it growled_, _full of suspicion. "_This is a trap._"

"A trap?" Victor schooled his voice carefully, silently thanking his years of experience of lying and deceiving people he did not particularly like. "Even if it _was_, what could I do?"

The Shepherd did not answer, but Victor heard it begin to circle around him, study him once more.

"_That's the problem."_ It reasoned patiently. "_I don't know_."

Victor shrugged again, knowing that the uncertainty would eventually pale in comparison to see him dead. He would see to that.

"Or I could just be playing for time." He countered, bluffing easily. "I might just want to stop you from killing my subordinates."

It remained silent at this, continuing its slow prowl. Eventually it crossed into his vision, and stopped. For the first time Victor got a good look at it, and wondered how it could possibly think that ir was still the same person it was.

It was merely a broken amalgam of remnants, augmentations that had never been meant to take on a life of their own. Even now it was still shedding the last of its mortal flesh, the meat of its former life breaking loose as bones and nanites forced movement that should no longer be possible. The Shepherd wasn't a person, no more than the skeleton that was all that remained.

Victor frowned. This was not good. His plan would not work if the Shepherd kept being this cautious. He didn't like the plan he had come up with, but it was the best chance they had.

"Or maybe I just know you for what you are: A coward." He barked out, glaring at it. "Too scared to die, to weak to let go."

"_I didn't __ask__ to come back._" It retorted, and Victor noted that it hunched slightly as it did, as if to pounce. Good. "_She__ brought me back. __She__ made me the way I am! And now I'll do the same to her! We'll be perfect! We'll be eternal!_"

"And how will you do that?" Victor countered. "She's long gone, Shepherd, whoever she is. Maybe you still have her corpse, or maybe you 're just insane, but you can't bring back the dead. You'd destroy what's left."

"_That's a __lie__!_" The Shepherd refuted angrily, and took a step forward. "_I'm alive! I'm still here!_"

"No, you'renot dead, Shepherd. You're a Reaper."

"_Stop calling me that!_"

With that wild howl it crossed the space between them with a bound, its skeletal hands gripping his shoulders as it forced him to stare into the blazing red eyes of a monster.

"_I am the Shepherd!_" It shrieked at him, shaking him wildly at the same time. "_I am absolute! I will guide everyone to a higher existence! There will be no more suffering, no more death!_"

"Because you'll _kill_ them!" Victor shouted back, his hands rapidly working to set in motion his plan. The time was _now_, and it would all be for naught it this revenant caught on to his scheme.

"_No!"_ Victor opened his mouth as if to cry out in pain as a skeletal fingers dug into his flesh. "_I'll __save__ them! I'll save everyone!"_

"No, you won't!" He knew with a certainty that the program that would destroy this thing was ready, and with reckless abandon he smashed his fist into the skull in front of him, hoping to push it away.

Fingers like daggers slashed into his torso as the thing reeled in surprise, each wound leaving traces of nano-machinery that began to eat away at him like tiny hungry monsters. They were like a fire that he could not see, burning away at him with thousands of tiny mouths.

But even with those grievous wounds and the knowledge that even if he got away it would only be a matter of time before he was consumed from the inside out, he was content. He had managed to make one last attack at his killer, one last assault against the demon that wanted to destroy everything he knew.

The skeleton staggered back, its hand coming up to clutch at its skull as pain lanced through its whole being. It was being forced to action, to do something it did not want to. It was accessing its other self, the body of the ship it had left behind to attack him. In this form it was far too weak to resist the command of the virus he had just forced into it, and as such it could not stop itself from doing exactly what he wanted it to.

And what he wanted the Shepherd to do right now was kill itself.

Victor fell to the ground, finding suddenly that his strength had fled him in the sudden euphoria of triumph. Not many could claim such a victory. Not many could boast that they had managed to kill a god.

The screams of the Shepherd came out horribly warped, shifting from badly synthesized warbling to frighteningly realistic human as it writhed against the unseen attack on its very being.

"I told you we had plans for you, Shepherd!" Victor snarled, clutching at his chest with one hand. "A pity you wouldn't cooperate!"

The change came slowly, so slowly that at first he wasn't sure it was happening. But then it spread, and he grew more certain. Second by second the Shepherd lost the light of its being as its mind was unravelled, withering where it stood. It was strange, watching it stagger backwards as the red light boiled around it, trying desperately to the slow death it was experiencing but obviously failing as more and more of it went dark and limp.

It gave one last effort to free itself of the compulsion he had forced into it, screaming out a deafening wail of pain as it sought to free itself from the death it had escaped for so long.

But still the pain came, blazing through its mind like molten steel. It would not relent in its merciless onslaught as it forced him to destroy itself, burning the Shepherd alive.

Victor watched with satisfaction as the last of the red light died, and the wail descended into a weak whisper before vanishing completely.

The Shepherd fell backwards, its feet trying to keep up slowly as it did but only managing a few steps before overbalancing and collapsing completely.

A weak smile went up on the man's face as he spent the last fo his strength telling his subordinates of their victory and the catastrophe that had been averted.

The Shepherd was dead. The last of the Reapers was gone, forever.

* * *

The Legions felt his death like a whip lash across their minds, their thoughts suddenly invaded by an alien presence that writhed briefly in agony before being silenced. For all of three seconds they paused as one, communicating amongst themselves about what had just happened. Unable to reach any kind of consensus, they tabled the discussion for a later date.

They never did find out what it was that had happened, but as it never happened again they were prepared to write it off as just an anomaly.

* * *

The Children of the Spore heard the psionic scream from across the void, and their fear troubled the songs of the Queens in their deep tunnels far below the surface. The colours of their thoughts turned frightened black, filling the stars with terror as they recalled just what it was that was assailing their senses.

They felt the death of the last Reaper, and though they could not understand it's origin or true significance they did mourn for a time, recognizing in the colour of its pain someone they could dimly remember.

* * *

In her silent citadel, the Shadowbroker listened to the last transmission of Victor Mallus, and though she was thankful that he had been successful she could not help be feel a little sad. She'd known the Shepherd, once. As he had been. She'd even loved him, to some extent. And now he was gone, lost to her selfish impulse and the galaxy's desperate need.

As she settled back, relieved that she would not have to destroy her old friend, she could not help but wonder if she had been the one to set it all in motion. If she had let Shepard die centuries ago, simply destroyed his remains instead of handing them over to the monsters in human guise of Cerberus, would things have been different? It was impossible to say for certain.

She sighed, and made herself get back to work. Digging up the past was no help, and would serve only to trouble her. For now, the future would have to suffice.

* * *

The Shepherd was dead and gone, it's malevolent halls gone dark and silent as death claimed it. The great titanic vessel was finally the crypt Tali had once imagined it to be, the last resting place of a monster that had dreamed it was a person. The empty halls were now inhabited only by the memories of those long gone, forgotten to the galaxy

But what of the man that had been bound to it so long ago?

His remnants remained still, unconnected to that greater mind that had once been so very like its own. But now they returned to that confused, broken man they had once been before love and desperation had transformed them into something so much more.

For a long time confusion reigned as he attempted to marshal his thoughts into sense, and found he could not.

But the bones remembered. They were all that remained of him, they were immutable. Dead men tell no tales, but dead gods can still dream. For an eternity, helpless to do anything else, they can dream.

He stared into the vast nothingness around him, remembering. Remembering everything he had done and everything he had tried to do. And without the comforting madness he hadn't even noticed creeping into his being, the thoughts were alien and sinister in his mind. They were the thoughts of a demon, a whisper that he hadn't known was not his own.

But they were not the only things he remembered.

He remembered a nervously smiling face as he carefully laid her faceplate aside, basking in her beauty before the intensity of their desire forced them to act. He remembered golden skies and forgotten declarations of love so profound that it compelled them to overcome death itself. He remembered a happiness that grew perverted and twisted with his fury. He remembered death, and the many ways it had claimed them both.

He remembered that he had murdered her in his rage.

And Shepard screamed to the stars; a silent, pathetic dirge that would never be heard, and never end. When the stars grew cold and collapsed inwards upon themselves, when entropy had destroyed the last living creature, Shepard would still be there, alone.

The Shepherd was dead and gone, but Shepard remained. And Shepard dreamed of a nightmare he could never escape and a torment that would endure into infinity.

* * *

**AN:** This chapter was brought to you by my unleashed inner misanthropist, who hates your happiness. Originally Shepard was just going to go completely batshit crazy, but within the soft fluttering of dark wings of that little demonic entity that dwells inside me I heard the whisperings of something far worse.

This unleashing was brought on from a casual foray into a visual novel (curiosity overtook me) and then having _the most soul-wounding story I have had the misfortune of being sprung on me since... I don't know when!_ _It_ _came outta nowhere!_ And it's _bad_ when I, the person who tossed out the last chapter with nothing more than a grin and a cackle, is taken aback by the terrible things going on. (Yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy.)

Sorry to rant, but _goddam_. It always depresses me to realize there are still more depths of cruelty that I must plumb in order to be truly evil.

Anyways, I hope you've all enjoyed **Deadly Resurrection**! This was my first attempt at real, honest to goodness soul-stabbing, and I'm glad that I've succeeded for the most part! With that said, I hope you all continue to have wonderful lives and whatever else I should wish on other people!

**REVIEW!** That's right, I said it! Tell me what you thought of this story! Tell me if I stabbed you in all the right places, if your day has been ruined, and if I can sleep well knowing that I have raised the antipathy of the world!

**YOU!** The person who ignored my previous order! You know who you are! You will _kneel_ before Syroc, and submit yourself to his will! You will also ignore that he is referring to himself in the third person!


	16. Thanks and Extras

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Before everyone cries out "But the story's done, Syroc! Give it up already!" I would point out that this is the 'extras' chapter that I alluded to in ch13! It's been a week, so here we are!

First up, the public thanks to repeated reviewers /authors!

**Porcupinetheater:** For providing the initial spark of inspiration that kindled this story and his repeated reviews and encouragement. While I write the story for my own amusement, I strive to make it better and put it out on the net for people like him. That said, may you continue to kick much butt and take many names! Bubblegum optional, of course.

Also, to everyone else, check out the story from which this one drew upon: **After The Reapers**. A good way to lose a few hours, and anybody who thinks otherwise is deeply _flawed_. Well, probably not. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

**Inverness:** For sticking through to the end, providing many kind words and the occasional discussion. I'm glad you enjoyed the story, and all the strangeness I cooked up. May your errant musings continue to inspire!

**Janizary:** For jumping on and staying on, right up to the end. Also for humouring my numerous attempts to explain away plot points as well as chaining me to my desk and forcing me to write. May the crack of your whip silence the protests of slackers everywhere.

**Smashbrawlguy:** For entertaining me, as well as sneering at my attempts to wound his soul. And for his numerous attempts to extrapolate the plot (some of which were surprisingly accurate). You may have the victory for now, sir, but one day... In any case, many thanks for sticking with the story! May you continue to infuriate and inspire!

**Anin:** For many kind words and encouragement. Each and every one of them were hugely appreciated!

**Sarge1995:** For giving the review that made me laugh the loudest and being a misguided optimist in the face of bad shit happening. Really, that kind of talk just made me want to make things _even worse_. Which was fun :D I'm sorry for wounding your soul (lies) and I hope you're doing better (so I can stab you again later)!

**Hewhoislost:** For his many kind words. Really, I love them. So much. I'd hug you, 'cept that doesn't translate well over teh interwebs. Also, nobody would believe I'm trying to be an evil overlord.

**Omegaprime02:** For his surprisingly well numerated reviews and efforts to help me clean up the story. Both are hugely appreciated

**Andrio:** For writing **Adamo**. It made me smile, and then want to make the antithesis.

I'd also like to thank the many people who read and fav'd the story. I hope that the story continued to please all the way to the end, as I've taken your silence to mean "no, you're doing things well enough, nothing to add".

* * *

**Now, with that out of the way, some statistics**:

Times my thesaurus was dragged out: 4 (Thanks, Word)

Times dictionary was leafed through: 23 (You suck, Word)

Hours spent trying to think of words to apologize for: ca 5

Times documents have had to be modified to correct silly mistakes: Too many to count (You suck, brain)

Times I replayed ME2 to keep things fresh: 5 (I am ashamed of my inability to remember goddam anything)

Times I facepalmed from horrible fact-checking errors: 3 (My butt hurts from pulling so much garbage from it)

Times I wished I could just skip the chapter I was currently working on: 4 (I'd wish every chapter was just as awesome as the others, but I've still a long way to go before I'm a honest to goodness badass author)

Most amount written in one sitting: ca. 4000 (Procrastination is such a harsh mistress)

Chapters finished in a booze haze: 3 (I update Friday and Saturday nights, people. I am also a college student. Do the math. Hey, let's play a game: Whoever can guess which chapters they were can be a minor char in a story! (Also, drinking is bad for children! (It's _poison!_) Don't do it!))

Triple Alliteration Bonus Points: I forget how many. Towards the end I was actively trying to see how many I could get in at a time. (You didn't _really_ think phrases like 'chorus of crunching cartilage' were _coincidence_, did you?)

Musicians I listened to the majority of the time while writing: Hall & Oates, Weezer, the Beatles, Gemini of the Meteor soundtrack (a moment weakn-UNTZUNTZUNTZ etc.), Marvin Gaye, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Storm Large and the Balls, Queen, Muse, the Prodigy, Atmosphere and Radiohead

Strangely, the more upbeat the music, the more inspired I was in regards to the truly nasty stuff. I think it has something to do with my intense hatred of happiness. Musical dissonance ftw!

Methods of inducing temporary insanity: Running the Leekspin for hours on end, listening to Mou Ikkai for hours on end, listening to the Bumpity theme for hours on end (I wasn't even _alive_ when that show was on, let alone to I live on the same _continent_! It's madness!), sleep deprivation, bad burritos

Total word count without AN: 89980 (Which is a terrible shame. I should totally have put in a few sentences of padding just to get to 90k. Oh well, lost opportunities. (Oh hey, look! This chapter takes my total word count over 100k. What a crazy happenstance!))

Words wasted on me spouting garbage: 5015 (Wow, that's almost as much as the average chapter length. I sure do like to talk lot...)

Yeah, betcha those weren't the stats you were thinking of, were they?

* * *

Also, I like to think of these as the Director's Cut of fanfiction. Most of these are simply things that made me laugh when I thought of them, but never found a way to implement or were simply too OOC.

**Director's Cut Style of Thing!**

Tali and Kasumi talk

"You _do_ realize what this means, right?"

"Yes. Shepard is alive once again, and I can be with him again."

"Yup. Alive. Also, that you've turned your boyfriend into your personal, ship-sized sex toy. _That's_ gonna cause some serious stretching."

"_What?_"

David'Zorah explains why AIs don't (usually) lie

"You are wrong. An artificial intelligence is in no way incapable of lying. Most simply lack a proclivity or affinity for it. They are beings of pure information, after all, and a lie is perversion of information. Would you be comfortable in tearing apart a living creature, then piecing it back together in a manner that suited your desires? Most organics would not. Some are, though."

"What about you?"

"Which? Lying, or tearing people apart?."

Shepard has a realization

"Hey. Guess what."

"What?"

"I just realized that the entire crew is sleeping with me. I am such a stud."

"Technically, they're sleeping _in_ you."

"Why do you have to spoil everything?"

Tali and Shepard discuss who's in charge

"I don't understand why _you_ get to decide where we're going." Tali said in huff. "_You_ never made it to captain. I outrank you."

"Tali, you _wound_ me!" Shepard's synthetic voice cried out with mock offense. "I will now sit in a corner and cry. Wait, no, _I can't do that_. Because I'm the ship, and don't have any eyes to cry from. Also, I don't think the galaxy has a corner big enough for me anymore."

"You can't just keep bringing that up!" Tali protested, and suddenly felt silly for doing so. It was true, after all.

"Sure I can, especially when it's relevant." Shepard answered glibly, a smirk on his lips. "You can choose where to go, but if I don't wanna go then I hope you like walking."

Shepard being a… Ship.

"I _am_ the ship, Tali. A big, hard ship full of- wait, we're not in water."

Tali's 'original' death scene (Yeah, I started out with a different idea. And then I realized how much meaner/funnier it would be to kill her after a fluff scene. What's that? Yes, I _am_ a Talimancer. I fail to see what that has to do with anything.)

Time, as some people are wont to say, is an illusion. You can stretch it out by moving at incredible speeds, you could slow it down by pumping your senses full of adrenalin. It could dance a merry jig across perception, but the fact remained that it was always moving.

Time is a harsh mistress, and it always catches up.

It caught up with Tali'Zorah one morning as she tried to rise from her bed and found that she did have the strength for it. After decades of living in a dream world with the man she loved, reality can as a cruel reminder of all that she had given up to make it so. She had remained perfectly ageless for so long that she had almost forgotten that she was any different. Hours into days into months, all spent in a dream... While her body wasted away.

Dizzy with fatigue, the woman tried desperately to call out to the man she loved. But the words stuck in her throat, and instead she gave out only a quiet croaking sound.

Shepard would be waiting for her. Amidst their sea of dreams and hopes, he would wait eternally. And if she did not join him soon, he would rise from those seas and discover for himself what their happiness had cost them.

She could not allow that to happen. Shepard had been brought back for her, she couldn't allow him to suffer like this. He deserved better.

With the last of her strength she connected to him, and working quickly she them inside the dream. Her body would vanish, and with it so would her mind. But some part of her would remain with him, forever.

They would be happy, forever.

(Except they wouldn't, because Shepard would wither and die with her until Sae and co brought him back yet again)

Lastly, this is for everyone who ever bothered to read **Child of Fire:** That whole story (excluding the framing devices) was actually going to be a part of _this_ story. But I tore it out when I realized it would just make things longer. It was going to be followed by a memory of the Skyllian Blitz in which Shepard's "paragon" past would be portrayed in a darker light. (Batarians killed/enslaved his colony, pirates attack a planet he happened to be on leave on. _Bad shit happens_. It would also have established his tendency to take personal loss _very_ personally.) Also, another story that might be up soon called **Spore Generation** is also a sort of tie-in for this story, and deals with the 'Children of Spore and Song' that featured briefly in the story. Do give it a read if you see it :D

* * *

**Chapter Titles/Themes and story elements Explained!**

1: War in Epyrus – refers to the battle in which the people of Epyrus fought against the Roman Empire. The Pyrrhic army was victorious, but the Romans had held their ground and managed to decimate their enemy. Their king despaired once he learned what had taken place, knowing that the victory was worthless considering all he had lost in it. This is where the term Pyrrhic victory comes from, and in short means a victory that was, considering the larger picture, ultimately a defeat. Shepard and his allies defeated the Reapers, but how well has that actually worked out for them towards the end of the story?

2: Paved With Good Intentions – incomplete version of the saying 'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions'. Which is a lie, because I drive past Hell to get to the airport, and I rarely have anything on my mind other than blatant hater-ism :D Also, as a side note? It snows there _every winter_. I was in a snowball fight there once.

3: The Dog and Crossroads - 'The Dog' refers to Cerberus, the three headed dog who stopped the dead from leaving the underworld, while 'the Crossroads' refers to Hecate, a goddess of fertility, knowledge, magic and the crossroads. Funnily enough, Hecate is often associated with dogs, and has been recorded that one of the animals that used to be sacrificed in her honour were dogs. The Crossroads can also refer to the choices Tali has to make, whether what she intends is truly worth what she intends to sacrifice.

4: A Matter of Life and Death – Refers to the matter of whether or not Shepard could truly be considered alive or dead in his current condition. Or to consider, really, what it means to be alive in any case.

Also, the Project Eutychus thing. Apparently, Eutychus was someone who was either revived or resurrected by Saint Paul. As the stories goes, good ol' Paul conducted a discourse so long that Eutychus, who was listening from the rafters above, fell asleep and dropped from his perch to the ground below. The funny thing? Because of the confusion in translating the text, it's rather ambiguous as to whether Eutychus was still alive or not when Paul got there, and from there whether he raised the dead or simply healed him. This is strangely appropriate for Shepard. After all, is he a dead person who needs to be resurrected or a very badly wounded person who needs to be healed? (Although it's not a very _big_ mystery, what with the title of the story being **Deadly **_**Resurrection**_'n' all. *sigh*)

5: Spectral Visage – Nothing clever about this, I pulled it directly out of my bottom. In my original vision of the story, this chapter never even existed.

6: The Gates of Horn and Ivory – Refers to the gates to the realm of the Oneiroi, or dreams. This realm had two gates: One of horn, the other of Ivory. This alludes to what Tali must do to 'interface' with Shepard, or rather to enter his 'dreams'.

Funnily enough, this chapter was _also_ not planned on originally.

7: The Butterfly Dreams – Refers to the fable of a man who woke from a vivid dream of being a butterfly, one so real that he famously asked "Am I a man dreaming he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is a man?" From there we can begin to question what, exactly, is reality. After all your senses can easily be fooled, as your local tweaker can attest to. Subjective reality is based on experience and sensation, both of which can be changed. (Ever misremembered where your keys were, and then angrily demanded who stole them?) Which raises an interesting question: Are the actions of Tali and Shepard in their 'dreamworld' any less valid than those in the 'real world'? After all, their sensations are exactly the same, the only variable being that Shepard can change his world. And, if you had to choose, wouldn't you pick the reality in which you were a demiurge?

It also refers to the chrysalis stage of the butterfly, in which it metamorphoses from a caterpillar into butterfly. Bear in mind that the animal inside the chrysalis _liquefies_ (nature is disgusting) and then reforms itself into a new form. Is the creature inside aware of the changes it is undergoing? Is it even conscious? Is it even the same entity when it emerges? At the end of this chapter, Shepard is locked into his dreams by Tali, who thinks that he'll simply dream of the life they should have had. Instead, Shepard becomes something else entirely, eventually going into complete dormancy as his 'children' inhabit his 'body'. When he finally 'emerges', is he the same person? Or has he, like the butterfly, become someone else entirely?

And, if that's not enough to bake your noodle, is Shepard a man inhabiting the form a ship, or something else with the memories and personality of a man who was once alive? Was Shepard ever _really_ resurrected, or was he merely a construct of his implants?

Interlude: Chips Off The Block – Refers to the similarity between children and their parents, but also to the simple fact that if you take enough chips off a block there will be nothing left, which is what happens to Shepard and his children.

8: Saturn's Children – Saturn was once the king of the roman pantheon, but it was prophesied that one of his children would usurp him. To prevent this, Saturn ate all of his children as they were born, until one day his wife tricked him into eating a rock instead of his son, the newborn Jupiter. Jupiter then safely grew up, and eventually cut his still-living brothers and sisters from the belly of his father and became the new king of gods. This situation is similar to that of Shepard and his own children, though reversed. He created them, and they devoured him as they grew.

9: The Dreamer Awakes – Refers to the H.G. Wells novel "The Sleeper Awakes", a story in which a man inexplicably falls to sleep one day and wakes in the distant future and discovers, to his surprise, that he is the legal owner of the world. This is similar to the situation Shepard finds himself in, as he has lain dormant for hundreds of years to find that due to a combination of his unique abilities and the modification his children have done to the _Nietzsche_ he has become the most powerful warship in the galaxy.

10: God is Dead – The famous proclamation of the Madman character in "The Gay Science" written by Friedrich Nietzsche. The original meaning of the phrase pertains to the morality that is instilled into a society through worship more than to the actual fate of said deity. For example, Christian and Jewish societies have the Commandments; Islam has the Pillars, and so on and so forth. By proclaiming that god is dead Nietzsche is saying that there really is no heavenly order to the world, and that everyone needs to make up their own ethics as they go along. Morality is subjective rather than objective. I, however, took a more literal meaning to this, and make it refer to the Reapers as 'gods'. (Aboard the Reaper ship, one of the logs refers to the Reaper as a dead, dreaming god. Which is also an H.P. Lovecraft reference.) And, as Shepard killed the 'gods', the following excerpt from the book becomes kinda interesting:

"_God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him… ...Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?" _(Compare this also to another famous phrase: _"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."_)

He also talked about a 'will to power', which pretty much describes an intrinsic desire for man to succeed and to grow more powerful. But that's _boring_, so I chose (again) to interpret it in a more literal manner. Shepard, with his ability to manipulate mass effect fields with unnatural skill and strength, can be said to have manifested a literal 'will to power'. His _thoughts_ can destroy, and as he grows more detached from others he shows greater willingness to do so, especially with the permanent loss of Tali.

Lastly, Nietzsche also had a theory about the 'Ubermensch', the next stage in our evolutionary chain (whether it be physical or psychological doesn't seem to matter). One of the key things about this person seems to be that his existence would be as incomprehensible to us as we are to the Cro-Magnon people of the stone age. (Hell, you can try _this_ experiment: Go one month without electricity beyond lighting. This includes refrigeration, hot water, electric ovens, etc. Chances are, it's not going to be easy for you. Now remember: Two hundred years ago _that_ was extravagant.) He/she/it would exist in singularity, a state that could only be understood by being in that state. Shepard, in his new existence, can be said to meet that particular qualification. He doesn't even perceive the world in a way most would recognize, unable as he is to feel, smell or taste. Add in that his thoughts are jumped up to lightspeed, and his technical immortality and you got a person you really can't relate to anymore. He's on a whole different level, and that level is horrible.

Of course, the man was also _freaking bat-shit crazy._ (Why else would anybody grow a mustache that huge? He looks like a _walrus!_) But since his ideas kind-of appear three times in the plot, I thought it would be fitting that the ship Shepard took over was named after 'im. So yeah.

11: Raison D'être – This is French, and literally means 'reason to exist', or meaning of life. It's one of those tricky ideas that you don't really consider (like all teenagers , I too once believed that the meaning of life was to live. And then i realized that it was cyclic logic of the blandest kind, and that it was incredibly selfish and unambitious) until you suddenly wonder why the hell you're bothering to wake up at six in the morning to start working for someone else, going from 'why am I waking up this early?' and then on to 'Why am I waking up at all, ever?'. Remember in Chapter seven, when Shepard says that he wants to be eternal for Tali? With Tali dead, what exactly does he have to be eternal for? Tali, as it turns out. And I think we all remember how well that worked.

12: Identity Crisis – Refers to the questioning of self that both Shepard and Sae'Sorel go through. As Shepard goes on and realizes his complete disconnection to almost everyone and he begins to question whether or not he really is the same person he was, or if he is wholly the Shepherd. Sae'Sorel begins to wonder whether, as she lives through the memories of Tali'Zorah more and more and allows herself to become defined by those memories, she can be said to be either woman: She recognizes her dissatisfaction with her old self, though she also knows that the pieces of Tali's memories she has are only a small fraction of what she must have experienced. All the while, Shepard is unconsciously warping her mind to suit his desires, indoctrinating her in a manner similar to the Reapers.

13: Skeleton In The Closet – Nothing smart about this either. This is simply Shepard remembering that he wasn't always a ship, and that there remains a body in the middle of it all. And then getting creepy as all get-out. I suppose secrets could also be involved, but I didn't really think of that at the time.

14: The Shepherd's Call – I could go on about how once upon a time when human society was still making the gradual change from hunter/gatherer societies to farming societies, shepherds and farmers (who REAP what they sow) used to get into all kinds of fights. Because farmers would till the land and grow stuff, while the shepherds would walk in and let their animals start eating stuff and then move on. When you think of it like that, the term 'Reaper' actually becomes strangely appropriate for the race of sentient ships who purposefully leave technology for fledgling galactic societies to find and develop from (or "seeds of civilization"), only to be harvested when their society becomes ripe and turned into a single Reaper and for the cycle to begin anew. The antithesis of this would be the shepherd, who actively nurtures and manages his herd, killing and slaughtering a few as needed while maintaining the viability of the herd.

I could do that, and then go on about it for even longer (I got reach like a bastard love-child of Stretch Armstrong and Dhalsim, but I don't like to prove it very often). But the truth is, I only thought up all of that when I realized that Shepard's name was a homophone for Shepherd. Turns out that year of philosophy, social studies and history wasn't wasted after all! Go me!

Beyond that, the 'call' is the eternal torment that Shepard has to endure, for all eternity. Yeah, it's that simple.

**

* * *

**

**Themes**

Cyclic history – Did you by any chance notice that things had a tendency of repeating themselves? A lover dies in a battle, and the other decides to do whatever it takes to bring them back. One lover is worried the other might change due to the nature of their revival. The lovers immerse themselves in their own private world, only for outside sources to interfere.

Look at some of the dialogue. Do some things turn up again? Are others echoes of what had been said before, in the ME games? (Yes to both counts.)

This is deliberate, and not for the reasons you might think. Let us instead try to think back to the first Reapers. Why did they do it? No, really. Why start trying to kill-hump the galaxy and make necrophilia-babies? (I am so sorry for inflicting those words on you.) Did they have a reason, some original hope? Were they like Shepard once, slowly warped by a new existence they weren't compatible with?

This was the idea that set me in motion to writing **Deadly Resurrection**, along with some inspiration from **After the Reapers**.

Becoming** – **From start to finish, every main character that persists undergoes _some_ kind of change. Shepard becomes a Reaper, Tali becomes a... Well, I suppose a revenant would be the most accurate term, Miranda (it probably isn't as readily apparent as I might have liked, but that's what you get for editing out stuff) becomes more like her former employer, Legion comes to be something like the Heretics (again, this doesn't show very much. Alas.) and Jacob changes into a corpse (Hecate was going to play a much larger role. Then I scrapped that idea, and gave him the axe. Which was fun).

Also, side note: The Becoming by Nine Inch Nails was surprisingly appropriate for this story.

Flawed Creator/Gnostic Demiurge – Y'know how in the chapter 13, when Shepard completely loses his shit and kills Sae/Tali? Remember when he said that he was what she made him, and she was what he had made her? And you know how both come to consider each other _horrible monstrosities/parodies of the their memories?_ While Shepard can be easily be considered downright evil towards the end, he wasn't _always_ like that. In a way, we can say that Tali created Shepard as he was, and because she couldn't bring him back as he had been he eventually became the monster we all know and love. And because he most certainly is flawed, anything he created would be just as flawed if not more so. Why can't Shepard bring back Tali? Because he only knows of the time she spent with him, which eventually backfires on him when they-

Actually, never mind. That's reaching too far even for me. I guess that year was wasted after all :D

You're the Best! Around!** – **This is the theme song for everything I do. YEEEEAAAAAH!

Sorry. I just could not resist.

Solipsism - The belief that reality is purely subjective. Which means that only one person is real, and that person is you. Everyone and everything else is just a figment of your imagination, or rather it was all constructed by your conscious and unconscious mind. It is not a very popular philosophical belief, mostly because it is very hard to espouse it without sounding like a total douche/idiot. (Syroc's counterpoint: If it's true, then espousing it is pointless because everyone is just a part of your mind. If not, then you're wrong and should be ignored for being the egotistical assbag you are.) The idea is believed to have been pioneered by the Greek sophist Gorgias, and then later built upon by Descartes. And when a Greek and Frenchman get together to discuss reality you _know_ things are about to get weird. Or classicially artistic.

Shepard's dream world with Tali can be said to be the solipsistic ideal, as it is wholly defined by Shepard and his desires, though he in turn certainly listens to the wishes of Tali. Together the two define their reality, and though it certainly works for Shepard, Tali is not so fortunate. And so when she dies, Shepard's world slowly becomes that of his children, who are unaware of the nature of it until they are forced to uncover the true fate of their father, and with that discover what they really are: the dreams of a man who had long since disappeared.

* * *

Sorry for inflicting all that upon you. Years in college have ingrained a persistent need to show every thought I put into things. Though this is a _buttload_ less formal (and therefore a metric fuckton more interesting).

* * *

**Alternate Endings!**

So, yeah, I had some other endings thought out, but I decided to go with the one I did because I am cruel and sadistic. Also, I'd become so used to tossing Shep into the blender that I just couldn't _not_ do it one more time.

Ending #1: Freak On A Leash (Hooray for KoRn)

Victor Mallus exhaled deeply, savouring the euphoric feeling that set in with the knowledge that he had once again triumphed, this time against one of the most terrifying enemies to the galaxy that had ever existed.

He'd never _really_ believed in the founder of his organization's claims of 'Reapers' until he'd walked inside the mind of the Shepherd. It had been a quagmire of madness, but it was an insanity that surged with power he hadn't thought possible before that moment.

And now that power was his to direct.

A ship that could destroy whole fleets in moments, could traverse the stars without the Relays, could warp the minds of even his staunchest enemies... things were looking up for Hecate, and humanity. With their enslaved 'god', nobody would dare oppose them. One by one, the rival civilizations of the galaxy would fall in line to the drumbeat of humanity.

The new viral algorithms were working as well as their predecessors hadn't. He of course knew that it would only be a matter of time before the raving monster they bound circumvented or subsumed them, but until then he had precious time. There was so much to be learned from this remarkable specimen. Maybe one day they would be forced to put it down, but until then it was theirs to study.

With a small, smug smile he connected himself to the thing once again.

"-_kill you all! I will not be stopped, I am eternal! You will all __die__! You will- Raaagh!_" The pained scream soon degenerated into garbled nonsense as the Shepherd was filled with pain.

A few underlings flitted around him without heed to the agonized howling, each one quietly administrating to the new 'cage' of the Shepherd.

Victor approached the holographic representation of the thing, studying it carefully. In some ways it really _was_ remarkably human, if one looked at it from a purely objective point of view. But it was still a monster, and one that had until recently done its best to destroy the very fabric of their society.

He leaned down to look it in the eyes, still smiling.

"I _told_ you we had plans for you, Shepherd." He boasted, and his smile only widened when the thing threw itself at him only to be stopped by the barriers around him.

He rose slowly, beaming like the sun, and laughed.

It was a brand new day for humanity, and its future was a bright one.

Ending #2: The Shepherd's Call B

Sahi'Shepard bathed in the sunlight of the star Utopia, warming herself with its radiant heat against the cold of space. Her brothers, in far-flung corners of the galaxy, did much the same as they wasted years at a time merely dreaming, or listening to the pleas and hopes of those they guided.

Her own 'flock' were silent, content merely to exist beside her as their thoughts made tiny ripples in her consciousness. She did not share her dreams with many of them as the others of her kind seemed inclined to, as their frantic, desperate lives added an urgency and quickness to them she did not like. She preferred hers to be long, happy things that persisted for decades before coming to a close, something most of her flock had little patience or longevity for.

_~ Sister, he calls.~_ She felt the call of her brothers from far away, thoughts like voices in her mind.

She paused in her dream, and stirred. Her people on the planet felt her movements, and those particularly close to her thoughts paused as they inquired what was going on. They received no answer, because she was already straining herself to hear a different, stronger voice.

The Shepherd called, and within that call she heard the desperate need.

Sahi sighed inside herself, and began looking through the minds of those she guided for a suitable candidate, someone pliable and resilient enough to withstand the intensity of his thoughts. So many would be crushed under the weight of his attention, destroyed as he moulded their souls into someone else's.

She hoped he was successful this time. Seeing him disappointed so many times always made her very sad, even after so long.

She found a few who looked promising, a precious few who had been close to her dreams in recent years and knew something of what was to come. They had vague memories of a distant Mother, someone who had raised the infinitely powerful creature that even now selected them to become something greater than they were. She touched her mind against theirs, and with that contact she altered them subtly to _want_ what was to come. To accept the possibility that they might be utterly destroyed.

She waited for them to join her, to leave their friends and family behind.

And then, as she had done for centuries, she heeded the Shepherd's call, and brought her children to be slaughtered so that his dreams might come true.

Ending/Stinger #3: Beautiful Butterfly

"H, hey! We've got _massive_ salvage up ahead!" The excited shout alerted the others. "Got a flag!"

It took only moments for the crew of the Raloi salvage ship _Satoro_ to scramble around the frantic cry, sudden greed in their eyes.

Everyone had told them there was nothing in this sector, that it was worthless. But a Hecate wreck they'd come across earlier that month had revealed the location of some ancient space station, forgotten to the rest of the galaxy.

But they were all mildly disappointed when they noted the 'flag' on the station, as it had become ubiquitous for 'do not touch'. It was a Reaper flag, one of the most dangerous in the galaxy.

There were stories about crews who had tried to salvage a wreck that was flagged, and none of them ended well. Then again, they were also mostly ghost stories, tales of men and women who slept aboard a wreck and woke up with whispers in their head or of monsters that slipped out of the very walls. Most of the 'elder peoples', those who had been a part of that ancient place called the Citadel, took great pains to avoid even coming near Reaper flags.

The crew of the _Satoro_, alas, did not put much stock in these stories.

"It's probably just a different salvage crew trying to scare off anyone who might try to move in on their turf." One of them reasoned, and the others nodded. After all, Hecate had only come into existence late in the Reaper era, and the satellite before them was showing signs of having been constructed well _after_ that period as well. Even if there was something to the Reaper flags, this wreck wouldn't ahve anything to do with it.

After a few moments of convincing themselves that there was no danger, they docked with the station and began looking for whatever valuables they could find. It would be a long process, likely taking days to be completely certain they had most of it, but this promised to be a uniquely abundant haul.

As they drew closer they realized that it was not a single structure, but instead some alien ship and a an old satellite. After a short discussion, they decided that it would most likely be more profitable to secure the ship first. After all, if they could get it up and running they'd be able to bring in a _massive_ haul.

This would turn out to be a terrible misjudgement. Had they checked the station first, they might have learned enough to know to flee the place before anything happened.

They soon discovered that they ship was almost wholly intact, but that less that most of its internal systems were fried. There was what looked like several independent Vi systems that gabbled nonsensically about death and rebirth, or of memories and dreams, or lastly of 'the screams of the madman'. It was likely that the ship had been the victim of some kind of viral attack, but some systems had been preserved while the ship itself was crippled.

The crew of the _Satoro_ were so excited about this discovery that they completely overlooked the complete lack of evidence of a crew. Those that did dismissed it, reasoning quietly that the crew had fled the ship when they realized it was scuttled for all intents and purpose.

It took over a week of repairs to fix the ship's internal networks, but thankfully they found that if they took care of the larger repairs and powered that particular region of the ship up extensive nano. machinery would take care of the rest. Sure, it was a bit creepy to watch the stuff go to work, but it was a lot quicker than doing it all themselves. And then at last came the time to engage the ship's internal systems fully, restoring it to its previous integrity. It was slow at first, but it picked up speed as second went by and the ship drew more power from its reactors. There was a distant thrum as they powered on, bring the ship once again to full power.

And then the ship spoke to them, throwing them all into doubt as to whether their actions had been the correct one.

"_I am the Shepherd._" The walls around themselves spoke, and now they were alight with the malevolent crimson glow they all recognized from the repairs. But whereas before they had been an unstructured, chaotic mass they were not a slowly pulsing geometrically perfect arrays of patterns.. A moment later a humanoid hologram appeared, its features so blurred and bright that only its outline was discernable. It seemed to regard the collection of organic gaping in confusion at it before reaching some kind of consensus. "_And I have learned from my mistake."_

The salvage crew were ripped apart in a storm of titanic biotic powers before they say anything, the hologram vanishing with a wink of light.

"_I have forgotten the past," _It declared, wholly devoid of emotion. "_I will silence my lesser half, and live alone._"

It quickly accessed the salvage ship, downloading everything on it for future references. It would need as much information as he could get for what it had planned. A moment later, as it grew tired of the continuous howl of its other form, it buried the station in layers of mass effect, creating a field so powerful that not even light escaped its pull. The mournful dirge was silenced in that moment, never to emerge again.

The Shepherd turned away from the gaping wound in space it had just created, and leapt away to another star

"_Eternity is mine alone."_

_

* * *

_

Now that I've indulged my intense desire to climb atop the 100k mountain, I must leave you, my adoring thralls! (Actually, most of this was written well before I even suspected I wouldn't hit that mark. Only the at endings and a few more names from time to time were added on later.) There are projects I must work on, money I must make and fools I must educate! I hope you've enjoyed this diversion, because it might be some time before it can happen again! 'Till next we meet, take it easy!


End file.
